Malakie

I get a kick out of those defending DRM and those with the "show me one documented case of...." blah blah.. Well I am that case.. I spent over a year and a half being unable to play the games I purchased because of the Battlefront DRM. I had no way TO ACTIVATE them. I lost my main hard drive in a hard failure. Upon replacing it, I was not able to use what I bought because I had no way to activate it. It was not until a short time ago that I was once again able to use the very software I purchased. While some people may have enjoyed full time on demand internet, there are many others that are dependent on metered data or connections that are temporary or in some cases, not even available as was my case. Which is why going forward I am very slow to purchase any additional titles that contain this kind of limited use DRM. While, as some of you say, we can always contact admin for more codes etc, that is not a solution for situations that do not have access to phone or internet. Nor is it a solution should something ever happen to the company itself.. Not saying they would or are in danger of it, but they could close down tomorrow and all of us would be screwed royally because we would never be able to use our software again because there would be no way to activate it. Personally, I have actually moved to the STEAM model because at least I can go offline and still have full use and access to all my software.. even if I change HD's and restore from backup... with Battlefront's DRM you cannot do that. The difference is STEAM keeps the activations within the STEAM client and directory files where Battlefront does so via the registry... and once your registry gets screwed... so are you.. With Steam I can copy over the backup and use what I purchased still as long as it is not modified or altered in any manner... Steam also does not limit your activations.. it makes ownership and use seamless while still giving devs piracy protection... There is a reason so many devs and so many customers have flocked to Steam. Anyhow, I ended up here today because of this very issue.. I tried Bitdefenders (this is the second time I have tried this product and ended up with it screwing things up - never again) latest version and it totally screwed my system by locking out some of my files and altering security settings on my system... To the point I cannot even take ownership of certain directories as ADMIN or otherwise... I now have no choice but to wipe and re-install everything... Last time I had to do this was 3 years ago.. I cannot even imagine what I am going to lose. Anyhow, that is my thoughts on this argument.. My hope is someday Battlefront gets rid of this entire system. Piracy is no where near the problem it used to be. Not even close. And why bother with hacked, cracked software when for a small amount of money you get something you can usually trust without having to jump through hoops, used cracked files and so forth just to run?

Still no change on my end for medium to larger games... No hit decals at all. Starting to wonder if it is related to GPU not being used and the graphics drawing ... Settings seem to make no difference at all. Will have to play a few smaller scenarios and see if that does anything.. But that should not make a difference on a 32 GB i-7 based system in SLI using GTX780 cards..

Like supply it would be nice if this were updated to allow a bit more capability... In fact I would love to have the ability to medevac units to save them, perhaps for later missions in a campaign for those that more units are not forthcoming and every man/unit counts AND also allow for reserve units to be brought in by helo or truck if a unit is pretty much combat ineffective due to casualties...

I look at it more from reality perspective. In tactical situations repair is NOT out of the scope. Vehicle repairs can and are repaired on the field, i.e. tracks, antenna, electronics and visual units. Of course fully destroyed items have to be waited on but most units carry limited items and parts for this very reason and the crew handles it. As for resupply, that is always available, if not by unit trucks/hemitts than by supply drops by helo or drop. The only time that is not practical is in fast moving missions, supply lines are cut or weather does not allow it.

I played a number of scenarios all with the same results... Even with ECM, as long as a physical spotter can see the target area rounds should still impact what you are shooting .. especially after doing a adjust.. And yes my spotters had positions that kept them in full line of sight the entire time. In one game I had 3 of them all with full on view.. same result.. My most current game I just played also had another annoyance.. I had 4 spotters plus a bradley IFV FIST// I first called for a drone, then two arty missions.. It took almost 30 game minutes before any of those missions came in.. by then all enemy forces were well gone or away from the fire mission designated area.

Just wondering if this ability was added? Just went through a major battle and every tank and APC went dry.. and neither I nor the AI could finish the battle with no ammo.. We can resupply ground troops.. what about tanks and apc's? If not, would love to see this option as well as battlefield repair for immobilized/damaged units..

Been wondering this also.. I always play on the hardest setting yet usually have no major problems beating the AI... Was this way in Shock Force as well...

Same issue here.. I am running full on everything on a SLI based GTX 780 system... No hit decals... I have also noticed the game does not seem to be using the GPU like it should.. My meters are down in the 14-20% range even on the largest battles yet the graphics are bogged, screen redraw etc... Same symptoms on another machine that is single GPU based, GTX 780TI.. So I know it is not the system.. My SLI based unit should be running things with out any issues at all graphics wise.. Combined with decals not showing... something going on....

I am seeing a problem with arty/mortar fire. In a couple games now I have had dedicated spotters call in fire. And not one yet has hit the actual area targeted using linear or area spotting. The average so far seems to be arty coming in long by a good bit. Anyone else seeing this?

Like you I too had hope... oh well... back to CMSF for a bit...

For me, the one thing I do not like about the way Battlefront operates is the key system having limits and we customers being forced to rely on Battlefront to use a product we bought and paid for. I recently had to replace a hard drive. Except when I went to unlicense my copies, it would not work. I tried contacting Battlefront only to have my emails rejected.. I could not wait and ended up taking care of things on my end. Now for the last 3 weeks I have been trying to get a response out of Battlefront even here on the forums because every email I send them is being rejected by their servers.. and the weird part is the rejection is not happening right away rather days later when I suddenly get an email stating as much. I have so far not heard from anyone at Battlefront regarding my request for help even though I also posted over a week ago here on the forums as well requesting it and why. I am not a happy customer because I own a number of their products.. and cannot use any of them because I cannot reach Battlefront to fix the issues with the elicense system. If Battlefront were to close up, every single one of us would own hundreds if not thousands of dollars of Battlefront products that we would eventually be unable to use at all because of the way the system locks us out after a few activations. IF the un-license system were flawless then perhaps it might not be such an issue.. but it is not. And THIS is why I think a Steam move would be a good thing for Battlefront, in my opinion.

That is what I did originally for an e-license issue... and nothing.. which is why I then tried doing it manually via direct email... and both of those have been rejected...

The last two weeks I have been trying to reach someone at Battlefront but every email address I have tried is being rejected... This is the mail system at host mail.battlefront.com. I'm sorry to have to inform you that your message could not be delivered to one or more recipients. It's attached below. For further assistance, please send mail to postmaster. If you do so, please include this problem report. You can delete your own text from the attached returned message. The mail system <support@battlefront.mojohelpdesk.com> (expanded from <support@battlefront.com>): connect to cesar.metadot.com[72.32.64.76]:25: Operation timed out Reporting-MTA: dns; mail.battlefront.com X-Postfix-Queue-ID: 5E985F69D1E6 X-Postfix-Sender: rfc822; <removed my email for this post> Arrival-Date: Fri, 26 Dec 2014 18:48:15 -0500 (EST) Final-Recipient: rfc822; support@battlefront.mojohelpdesk.com Original-Recipient: rfc822;support@battlefront.com Action: failed Status: 4.4.1 Diagnostic-Code: X-Postfix; connect to cesar.metadot.com[72.32.64.76]:25: Operation timed out I have also tried the elicense@battlefront.com address and the onsite form as well.. None of them have gone through. As you can see this one was sent the 26th of December and just now I got the rejection back, 31 Dec... I need some customer support so is there another address that works I can use to reach someone??? Malakie

Let me know of any recommended changes. I am actually right this moment working on fixing some stuff with the briefing for Scenario 3, finishing up Scenario 4 and want to have Scenario 5 up and done later this afternoon if all goes well.

Hi all, I have just uploaded scenarios 1 - 4 of my East Rising Campaign (may need to wait a bit for Battlefront to post in the NATO section). When completed, the campaign will be somewhere between 12 and 17 scenarios in total depending on how you do in each scenario. Once set in the campaign, units will (or not) carry forward to each successive campaign scenario. However for now, I have uploaded the first 4 scenarios of the campaign in one archive for you to try out. Scenarios 1 - 3 are complete and other than maybe some balance or AI tweaking, should be fully playable. Scenario 4 should also be fully playable however I have not yet done the briefing text, AI adjustments, unit balance or so forth. Any feedback and/or comments are welcome.. *NOTE: You must have ALL the expansions including NATO. You will also need a decent system to run this because the initial battles are large for reasons that will become clear as the campaign proceeds - and of course I want you to have units later in the campaign! :-)

I just purchased the full Theatre of War pack, Uber patch etc. All installed but my framerates are at a crawl. I saw an older thread with a lot of discussion about this.. has ANYTHING been done to resolve this because this is unplayable. I have a power system, Intel I7 Core 4/8, 9 gig ram, Creative X-Fi Titanium Fatality Pro, Nvidia GTX590ti Video This machine should be able to run this game without blinking even with uber figures on the screen running around. No matter what settings I try, same result though. I can run any other game at max everything with nary a stutter yet FPS in this game is at a crawl. Please tell me there is a fix for this???!!

That would be awesome.. But I would like to see some of the things I mentioned as well so that even when development ends, the sim can continue on because of modders.. As for a new 'engine' for the game/sim, that I understand as well because the current engine does leave a lot of room for improvement...

I do not understand why Battlefront just decided to cease support of the Combat Mission Shock Force series. They could have come out with a bunch of modules... China, Iran, Israel, Russia, Sweden, Norway, Denmark and so on.. This title could have been so much more than it is even now. Perhaps someone could convince them to release a method of the modding community being able to add new 'modules'. That would give CMSF life well into the future if players could add and modify the actual units. We could then also update/upgrade existing units.. example, update hummers to the latest up armored versions or add the new MRAP series etc etc. It is really frustrating when we get such an excellent combat sim title only to have the developer drop it like this in terms of additional enhancements and so forth.

That sucks... The WWII market is way over saturated in my opinion.. You can only play the Battle of the Bulge or Normandy so many times before the story and playability does get old in terms of playable sims. But the modern warfare market is wide open and not many are doing detailed sims like CMSF. They could make a killing by doing many many more modules for modern military hardware and nations...

Couple questions been nagging at me.. First I notice with vehicles using slat armor and/or reactive plates, boxes, armor etc, that RPG's and other weapons still routinely take out even tanks with little effort... Is this going to be adjusted or rectified at some point? Slat armor does a good job against RPG's on initial hit. Of course hit the same spot and it may go through the damaged area... Same with reactive armor... they should easily defeat RPG's and many other anti-tank missiles on initial strike.. Yet in game they do not seem to have any effect what so ever.. It would also be nice to have some damage modeling in this cases as well... Second, just wondering what the next module for CMSF is? Would love to see China, Russia, France, Iran, Italy etc etc..

I bought DVD versions of Combat Mission and the Marines module. Had intended on buying British and the newer modules coming out but at this moment, there is no way I will even consider it. After loosing a system to power issues, I finally got new drives and a power supply and rebuilt my machine. After re-installing imagine my surprise when I found that the DVD versions also include the e-license crap. Now for many of you this may be a non-issue. For me it is a major issue because I do NOT have ANY access to internet services. I was very happy to initially find that someone was doing a sim based on today's military... reason... I am now a service connected U.S. military disabled veteran who right now has his sole income from the V.A. If you know anything about us you know the amount of disability we get initially does not come close to what is needed just to survive let alone pay for things like internet service and cell phones. The closest library is over an hour drive one way. I have made that trip twice in the last two months because the first time the e-license kept telling me or giving me a # 96 error whatever that is. Today I was able to try a new license I downloaded while at the library last week. And it finally worked..... only to now have the game crash completely on initial loading. Just a windows error with a cancel button telling me windows is checking for a solution.. etc etc etc... It never gets to any screens, menus nothing. I am sick of this crap. I bought something and I cannot use it when and where I want. Even if I could afford internet services it would still be an issue as far as I am concerned. No other product line has these kind of bullcrap restrictions. Could you imagine your car, clothes, TV, appliances etc all having this kind of restricted access? So unless Battlefront can convince me otherwise, I will be holding off purchasing any additional products comntaining anything like this e-license crap that forces me to have internet just to use what I paid for. It would also be nice if anyone could make some suggestion on how to fix the game now that it is licensed but crashes immediately on load. My system is as follows: Intel i7 based system w/9gig ram HD3870 video card (HD4850 blew up with the system I mentioned) two HD's totalling 1 terabyte Creative xFi Audio As of today, ALL drivers as well as DirectX are up to date and current since I downloaded them on my last trip. I have uninstalled completely and reinstalled with the same results. I also deleted the games config file to try that as well. No change. I will have my daughter log in and check for a reply to this message. Hopefully someone can offer some suggestions.... and maybe Battlefront can comment on the other if they are so inclined to keep me as a customer.

:-) Let me know who wins! Malakie

Hi, Thanks for the feedback.. Been slowly working on the remaining scenarios for the full campaign. This was the first scenario ever so still learning the way to properly design a map is something I am trying to do.. Perhaps someone can create a nice tutorial on that. I am able to get things to go up and down but to actually create workable ridges, hills, mountains and such... well I seem to mess things up more than anything else. I will answer each item you mentioned: 1) This map is a bit flat. partially because I am still trying to learn how to create proper maps using the editor.. I seem to create these maps that have a lot of right angles to them... bleh.. Additionally this map is supposed to be somewhat flat since it is around a U.S. military base and additional ammo depot armory. The base is also attached to a training area/grounds for weapons live fire ranging and practice. It does have some high terrain and low terrain.. it is not completely flat by any means. 2) Artillery barrage - It is intended to be long as a precursor to the actual attack. The barrage coincides with special forces units that have infiltrated the base already.. (more on that later) and they have called in the precise strike locations based on where units are and movement throughout the base and attached training area. 3) Troops starting in the same building - That is designed in. If you look at their info, they are 'Special Forces' units. They have infiltrated the base. The idea was twofold. a) they are spotters for the artillery barrages. they can cause some havoc inside the base before base personnel can position themselves to counter the special forces units. i.e. notice that depending on some things, you could end up loosing the locations that are needed for victory because the spec-ops units are inside the buildings and need only surprise your units enough to take them out thus gaining control of the building and victory location. 4) As for flavor objects... I am trying to learn more about that as well.. Subsequent scenarios as well as updates to this will hopefully contain more of that kind of thing. 5) I built some randomness into the scenario so it plays different each time. Syrian forces do not always show up or do the same thing each game. I will look into adding more to it tactically but in reality it is supposed to be an all out rush by the Syrians to take the base before you can get people into your armor... following the massive arty barrage that attempts to destroy all the armor you have located in the depot at the time. What did you think about the design aspect where all your armor units, with a few exceptions of on duty units, are actually empty and contain no crews thereby forcing you to find and place the right crew into the right armor unit before it becomes available for use? Were you able to find all the right crews for the right units to power up? ** one other thing.. You said you like the new use of units types and so forth... wait until the next few scenarios come up... Without giving away to much I can tell you that the Syrians did capture some U.S. locations and it will and does have direct bearing on upcoming scenarios.. If you loose this scenario it also dramatically impacts the path of the full campaign and on what you have available for use. A friend tested one of the future scenarios. I loved his reaction when he had first contact with the Syrians in that scenario (no. 4 or no. 5 in my campaign) ... his reaction "Oh crap..." and 'WTF?' :-) I had to get creative so get away from the same old same old. Malakie

I just posted the first scenario of my new campaign and it makes use of both extensively in the first scenario. East Rising is the name... Malakie

Running Vista 32 bit on two machines, Vista 64 bit on the other two. Yes I have the Marines module currently and my version is DVD for both the main game and marines update. Patch is the current, v1.21 Marines version. It definitely has something to do with vert. sync. For now I just leave it off in prefs and have turned it on in the Catalyst Control Center.. Seems to work ok that way although I still get some tearing once in a while since the in game engine is not processing it. One thing I have noticed about the new drivers... much more stable overall especially with OGL (Open GL) apps and games.