stoex

Judging by the way shadows fall throughout the surrounding image, I wager it is a depression or excavation of some kind. The material taken out of this excavation appears to be piled up directly to the north of the channel, again judging by the shadows. What the structures are that can be seen inside the 'canal', I have no idea. EDIT: Beat me again, Thomm. Cheers!

Lol yeah, I forgot about my CAS as well . Got very lucky in the AT department to make up for that, though. I should maybe also mention that I play RT with probably 30 pauses per minute on average. I know most people think this is crazy, but I find it's the best way to limit the major drawbacks of each play style to a minimum, meaning: I hate the fact that I can't give my units orders more than once a minute in WeGo. This is compounded by the fact that I'm a blundering fool tactically and my plans rarely survive the first 10 seconds of their execution, never mind contact with the enemy . On the other hand, keeping everything going can be a hassle in RT, so I need a lot of pauses to overview progress throughout the battlefield. I only let time pass when I have found a camera angle that allows me to see everything I feel I need to see on screen at once. Then when anything happens, I hit pause and zoom in to there to address the issue. This way I can control even very large battles relatively well. The downside to my method is it takes FOREVER . I can't get anything reasonable accomplished in a lunch break or such timeframes. Immersion also suffers a little, but control is at a maximum - micro-timesliced-combat is the way I like it best . Call me crazy...

I forgot to mention two things in my previous post: First off, I play exclusively in RT. To see that TheVulture's battle is moving along very much like mine has some pertinence to the RT vs. WeGo-discussion going on in another thread. On the other hand, CMSF is so dynamic in so many ways that my overall opinion is that regardless of which play mode you prefer, any two runs through the same battle can be similar or very different. I have found this to be true on the very few occasions when I have replayed scenarios, too. Generally, things turn out rather different every time, but not always...FWIW Second: Thanks to you, snake_eye, for the very enjoyable EL Derjine campaign. I am currently stalled ahead of battle 3 due to lack of leisure time, but I intend to delve into it ASAP. Hope you will produce another campaign sometime, snake_eye! Love it!

Having recently played this scenario myself, I am really enjoying this read, TheVulture. Great stuff! I also notice that you and I seem to have taken a similar approach to this battle, and you are getting very similar results to mine as well (so far). It's been all I can do reading this far to not post Spoilers (damn mines! lol) or try to click into your screenshots to influence the action, so I haven't posted yet. At this point I will share my initial reaction to meeting the friendly neighborhood T-90 with you, as I think it fits quite well...: 'The plot, as they say, thickens.'

Well, for everyone grumbling about the uselessness of the M707 Humvee in that thread - here's the proof, in irrefutable and high-definition screenshot fashion, of the M707's sublime utility: notice the grunt taking potshots with his rifle from his raised, mobile OP, resting his rifle on the thermals for improved accuracy! He sees ALL while the nearby M2 gunner stares futilely into the darkness! (Cue RPG BOOM here...)

Steve, You wouldn't have to make all reloads mandatory. Certainly I want my gunners to reload automatically when their weapon is empty. What we are talking about here, as far as I'm concerned, is the OPTION to have the gunner reload at my orders when the weapon ISN'T empty. I understand that the TacAI can't easily handle figuring out good points in time to reload. That's what MY job is. TacAI can however easily tell when the gun is dry and react accordingly, meaning fill 'er up.

Not to take this too far off topic, but besides 'prostate', you also said 'alter', what's up with that? ...oh, and does being a 'whiz' have anything to do with your prostate, by any chance? *wink* Just kidding, Mord...we needn't have an altar-cation about this. Seriously, Steve: We sit, we beg, we roll over, sometimes we play dead, and we chase any stick that's thrown with commendable fervor. Can we get a bone, pretty pretty please?

I'll hand you that. WeGo replays make it a lot easier to estimate number of rounds fired - almost impossible in RT if you want to see anything else happening! Cue the JAV Team/Sniper Team with no useful ammo left, or the two-man remainder of a chewed up inf fireteam for that case. They are more use spraying 40mm than 5.56! In other news: "Mei Bier is net deppat!" Cheers!

Pandur: That is actually what I meant but didn't communicate very well. I meant that this effect would be easier to achieve in RT play, but that your "workaround" for WeGo is impressive and imaginative. The only drawback I see is the fact that the vehicle has to "do the dance" for this to work, which may in some situations be undesirable in terms of reducing cover and accuracy of fire (particularly in the case of the Stryker-mounted 40mm. Those grenades go all over the place when fired on the move. Blackcat: In the case at hand, brief bursts of area fire should be quite effective. Those 40 mike-mikes really hassle enemies in buildings! 3-4 hits on an occupied building are usually enough to kill a couple of men in a squad/fireteam, and certainly everyone on the receiving end will hit the deck pronto. As Pandur says, depending on the weapon used, longer pauses may be in order...certainly longer for a MG, for example. For a MBT main gun, the 10 seconds seem about right again, allowing for a single round to be fired at each area target and reloading in between. Remember that a few seconds pass every time the vehicle moves to the next action spot, as well. EDIT: beat me, Pandur EDIT 2: One other thing that favors RT in this particular situation: The long reload pause for the Stryker 40mm. This can cause more or less an entire turn of "dancing" with no rounds fired, PLUS a gunner sticking his head out of a moving vehicle that is defenseless. In RT if the gunner needs to reload, I can just wait it out and then redo the area fire orders without him inviting the opponent to shoot him.

Pandur, interesting tactic and nice screenshot....looks to me like a serious case for RT, though . More control, less shimmying around... OTOH, both RT and WeGo could profit from Secondbrooks' idea of multiple targets, which I will +1 here FWIW. It would be really nice to be able to simply tell a unit to put fire HERE for 15 seconds, then THERE for 10 seconds, and finally OVER THERE for 30 seconds (or the remainder of the turn), without changing position. I think a way to realize this would be two separate pause commands, one pertaining to movement orders only, the other to target orders. This would also allow shifting units from cover to cover, preventing them from stopping to fire while between cover spots. Fire at enemy for a while, run to the next house, resume firing at enemy. Sounds good to me

Thanks for the reminder, TheVulture! I now remember having the exact same problem a while back...I was too lazy to raise it as an issue at the time, and now I haven't been able to play CMSF for quite a while due to work and other things eating up my time. It did occur with v1.21, though. It occurred with several scenarios and campaign missions for me, but always only when loading, quitting, then loading another save from the same battle, as you say. It really isn't that much of a problem for me because quitting CMSF entirely and restarting it always caused things to work fine again, but now I am wondering whether there is any relation between this and save game corruption as mentioned several posts above. A friend of mine also reported to me that this happened to him. He isn't a forum member, though. Should the beta gang want, I will try to find some of the scenarios I had trouble with and can send savegames. All RT, however. Cheers

Yeah, the grunts do tire more quickly in v1.21...just noticed that again in Night Stalkers. It does seem to me, though, that to move over longer distances, my pixeltruppen still seem to make better time if I let them go QUICK for a while, let them rest some 30 secs at a waypoint, then Quick some more, etc. Haven't tested it but I'll betcha all a donut that they can cover 400m much faster that way than with MOVE, and be at READY fatigue level when they get there. PLUS stopping at waypoints in between gives 'em even better spotting for the duration of the pause...

Moon, just to get back to you on this briefly: I don't know if games are cheaper in Germany, but prices have certainly gone up (slowly) for years here. Part of that is understandable since production costs keep rising as hardware improves and all, but € 50 has been the standard for PC games here in Austria for a while now, too. Just checked again today and found: Call of Duty Modern Warfare 2 -- € 49.99 for PC, 59.99 for PS3 Dragon Age Origins -- same EA Sports Soccer Manager 10 -- same And I remember Fallout 3 was 59.99 when it was released. And as you see, there is a standard € 10 premium on console games vs. PC. Seems a little like printers and ink - hardware prices have been dropping while software/supplies prices have been rising. Better money for producers in the long run, I guess

c3k, don't you ever assault? My feeling is i use about 70% quick, 25% assault, and 5% the rest. With infantry, that is.

Yes, afreu, it's here: http://www.battlefront.com/community/showthread.php?t=89587 Downloaded it but haven't had time to play it yet. I'm always a bit shy about the large scenarios...will post when I have tried it.

Moon - unfortunately your price guess for new releases in Europe is a little off...at least as far as I am concerned here in Austria. Shelf prices for new releases are more like € 49.99 here, even € 59.99 for popular titles. This is one of the things I love about BF - getting so much more bang for my buck (or Euro as the case may be). I believe the CMSF Base game/Marines combo offer when I bought it online from you was $ 45? A complete steal for one of the greatest games ever PLUS an add-on, about half of what I would pay for any old crap game in my local store. Can't wait for CM:Normandy!!! Cheers to you guys from here:)

@secondbrooks: I think you are right in principle, however I will add that additional weight to be carried affects the threshold between the aerobic and the anaerobic level quite heavily as well. This means that if you want to run for a relatively long time (staying under the aerobic threshold) while carrying a heavy weight, you will have to run much slower as well. So if the Syrians are less weighted down, their quick and fast speeds should both be higher than coalition forces', or their fatigue thresholds lower at the same speed, assuming identical fitness levels, which are of course another point for argument altogether. All in all, I think I will stick with my original opinion that for game purposes, CMSF works ok in this respect. BTW, has anyone here ever actually done a Cooper test? I did one once in soccer training and boy, it was tough. REally, really hard. I almost threw up at the end. EDIT: Rereading your post, secondbrooks, I find I kind of said the same thing you did. Sorry , didn't mean to do that really, I misunderstood you the first time. Point is I believe, if anything, that Uncons with nothing but their civ clothes, a rifle and a few rounds really ought to move faster than soldiers in full gear. Do they? I don't really even know but I don't think so...Test this, anyone?

tyrspawn, +1 to that, would be nice if at least basic ammo (5.56 and 7.62) were gathered automatically if low. What I would also like to see would be a different breakdown of the ammo available in vehicles. Strykers carry over 3,000 rounds of each, and the smallest number available before anyone has taken any rounds is 1,000. So if I want to grab a little extra 5.56 for an MG or Jav team or something like that from a vehicle which no one has resupplied from before, I have to give them 1k rounds, far more than they will need, and have less left in the vehicle for the infantry squads who may eventually need those clips later. And anyway, why am I offered to take over 3,000 rounds of 5.56 at once from a vehicle in the first place? Has anyone ever used that many in a battle? If I was offered, say, 200/400/600/800 rounds (instead of 1,000/2,000/3,000/3,360), it wouldn't make the list any longer, but I could take smaller amounts, and take larger amounts by simply aquiring multiple times. Anyone?

To put a little perspective on this in terms of numbers: Average speed for a marathon winner is about 42,000 / 7680 = 5.5 m/s Usain Bolt averages about 100 / 9.5 = 10.5 m/s Granted, grunts are neither marathon winners nor the lightning Bolt, and an average jog is quite a bit slower than a winning marathon run. My opinion is that speed and fatigue are OK in CMSF for game purposes, whether completely realistic or not. Also remember that the same parameters apply to both sides in this case, so there isn't really any advantage either way. Like playing football in the rain, you can't really complain about it because after all, it's raining on the other team as well...

Bigduke6, US can certainly miss their arty strikes as well. It happened to me last night, not for the first time. Two subsequent calls on a stationary BMP by a Veteran US Army Squad resulted in two and three spotting rounds respectively, and not a single round, spotting or FFE, came within 150 meters of the target. The BMP did not move an inch throughout. The FFE rounds did, however, land in a very tight sheaf close to the last respective spotting round. It happens a lot less with FOs, and less the better quality the spotter and arty units have, but it does happen!

Too late for EDIT, but -- Example: I have never seen a specified time below 2 mins in the request setup, yet USMC 60mm mortars with a good spotter with C2 start spotting almost immediately after confirming the request, and with 2 spotting rounds on average, rounds on target usually appear within 1 minute, less if the first spotting round is close enough. I have just experienced this in-game again.

I'm wondering - are all you guys actually measuring the time span between the fire request and rounds on target according to the game timer, or are the 2/5/10 minutes in this argument just the numbers shown in the fire request setup? Personally I have not tested this thoroughly, but I am quite confident that almost every call for indirect fire in CMSF yields rounds on target FASTER than the specified interval. My feeling is about like this: 2 mins specified in fire request -- rounds on target in 60 to 90 seconds 5 mins specified -- 3 to 4 mins 10 mins -- 6 to 8 mins Is it just me or does anyone else feel the same way? It's the reason why I'm not worried about this, anyway, whether I'm just imagining it or not .

Hey Thomm, I don't understand why BFC has removed most of the comments from the hotkeys file....+1 for having them back. Anyway, I have reconstructed the comments, so here is my hotkeys.txt v1.21 for anyone to use. Just copy in the text...you will have to change it to your liking but it works as is, and all the comments are there. Greetings, stoex // You can edit this file to modify various in-game functions and hot-key based commands. Use of special characters (shift, alt, control, numpad or function keys) is not permitted. The letter in <>'s (E,F or G) designates the language (English, French or German). Camera Keys // camera forward motion <E>W <F>Z // camera slide left <E>A <F>Q // camera slide right <E>D // camera backward motion <E>S // camera rotate left <E>Q <F>A // camera rotate right <E>E // camera turn 180° <E>V // camera raise elevation <E>R // camera lower elevation <E>F // camera zoom out <E>Y <G>Y <F>W // camera zoom in <E>X // camera wide-angle/regular angle toggle <E>C Misc Keys // select previous unit <E>- // select next unit <E>= <G>+ // lower 3D Model Quality <E>{ // increase 3D Model Quality <E>} // chat Message Toggle <E>` Command Keys Default // REALTIVE COMMANDS... These keys are relative to the button position in the displayed command panel // Activate the button in the top row, left-most position <E> // Activate the button in the top row, middle position <E> // Activate the button in the top row, right-most position <E> // Activate the button in the middle row, left-most position <E> // Activate the button in the middle row, middle position <E> // Activate the button in the middle row, right-most position <E> // Activate the button in the bottom row, left-most position <E> <F>, // Activate the button in the bottom row, middle position <E> <F>; // Activate the button in the bottom row, right-most position <E> <F>: Command Keys Direct // These will issue the designated command no matter what command panel is currently displayed <E>B // move fast <E>N // move quick <E>M // move normal <E>L // move slow <E>U // move hunt <E>I // move assault <E>\ // move reverse <E> // blast <E> // mark mines <E>T // target <E>Z // target light <E>G // target arc <E> // NOT CURRENTLY USED... Do not assign a key to this function! It will eventually be the hotkey for Clear Target, but not yet properly activated <E>O // face <E># // Target Smoke <E>/ // deploy <E>P // pause <E>H // hide <E>[ // dismount <E> // bail out <E>J // vehicle open up <E>. // pop smoke <E>, // acquire <E> // divide teams <E> // assault team <E> // antitank team

Here is my take on this after extensive testing, FWIW: -) All tests RT, WeGo not tested. -) All my savegames are from v1.20, since I completely restarted playing CMSF from scratch after patch 1.20. In all campaigns and scenarios, all US Army, USMC, and Brit Forces can no longer call in artillery IF THE GAME HAD BEEN SAVED WITHIN A MISSION (including in the setup phase). Campaigns saved between battles (save after the AAR for the previous battle) are not affected in this way. Strangely, RED-vs-RED campaigns (Hasrabit and Road to Dinas) are completely unaffected, meaning Syrian spotters (and also HQ units as stated in the 1.21 patch notes) are able to call artillery even if the game is loaded in-battle. Hope this helps. And I hope all you campaign-playing folks are in the habit of keeping between-battle saves for just such an emergency . @phil: make sure you are really loading a savegame from between battles (you should be getting the RT/WeGo choice popup at the beginning of loading in this case)! seems to work for me...also remember that if you load a battle in the setup phase, you will get the briefing screen, the same as when you load from between battles - this may be confusing. BFC, please look into this!!!

+1 to that!