stoex

There's another thread here somewhere regarding CMSF vs. Multi-core, I forget where so I'll try to replicate the important part...this is if you're using XP like any responsible computer user should be Windows XP as a rule allows processes which are not coded specifically for Multi-core (like CMSF) to use only one of your 2 or 4 cores, which makes some sense because unfortunately most apps are still not coded for multicore, and if they aren't, it doesn't change performance much. You can however change this in the task manager without breaking anything, so it's worth a try. Here's how to do it: 1) While CMSF is running, press ALT-TAB or the Start button to get to your desktop. 2) Press CTRL-ALT-Delete to open the task manager, click on the processes Tab if not already open. 3) Right-Click "CM Shock Force.exe" and click "Set Core Affinity" (or something like that, can't be sure because my XP is in German. Should be the bottom entry in the pop-up menu). 4) Check the boxes next to all available CPUs and click OK. (I love the way this window is future-safe by offering up to 32 CPUs ....anyone out there have a 32-core CPU? If so where do I get one? Probably for servers or something) Anyhow, now you've done what you can, the rest is up to CMSF and XP...again it may help and it may not, my guess is not much at best. Also, you will have to repeat this process every time you start CMSF if you find it helps, because whenever you want Windows to remember something, it won't, just like it knows just about everything about your computer usage habits that you wish it didn't, and reports it to Microsoft, the NSA, and Interpol Hope it helps, greetz

Thanks again for some RL insight, snake eye . I do understand the bursts of fire, but remember I am talking about interrupts of over a minute here, far too long for "sustained area fire" as I would understand it, plus the greying out of the weapon in the ammo panel. After perusal of the documentation, I have come up with another possible reason for the fire interrupt: Could it be the gunner is having to switch ammo belts? He has to have at least 2 different ones for HE and HEDP, and I don't know whether the 336 HEDP rounds are all in one belt or several... Any thoughts? I still think it's just jamming, as other weapons don't seem to "grey out" during reload. Obviously more or less any weapon must have a certain chance of jamming, particularly in dusty desert terrain. And they do deprecate with each round fired, average weapon life for the MK19 is stated as being 50k rounds in the documentation you linked... EDIT: what exactly is the cyclic ROF?

No worries, Secondbrooks, additional input always welcome. As I have mentioned, I have zero military experience and hope never to need any in RL, but I have also done well enough playing CM so far using the intelligence and common sense thankfully available to me. However, gaining some knowledge of how things are actually done by real soldiers and their commanders may someday allow me to play CMSF at elite level and actually see at least a handful of the enemy units before being blown to kingdom come, so I appreciate anything you guys are willing to share

Thanks Chainsaw, for being the first to actually react to something I've posted in these forums...makes me feel part of the family And the point is of course taken, I now fully agree with and will adopt your method of building assault in CMSF:)

I'm pretty sure that weapons do jam in CMSF, as I have repeatedly noticed my 40mm Stryker guns (sorry I never know the correct military terms for these things) "inexplicably" ceasing to execute their area fire for anything between 15-90 seconds (also happens when they are attacking spotted targets, but much more rarely because such engagements seldom last more than a few rounds), then resuming to shoot, even though their LOS was not interrupted. I have found that whenever this happens, the 40mm gun is greyed out on their ammo panel in a darker shade of grey than the ammo they are carrying around for squads to refill from, for the duration of the fire interrupt. I can figure only two possibilities: 1) The weapon is jammed (and the poor gunner working hard to fix the problem ) 2) The weapon has overheated from being fired to fast for too long (and the stupid, trigger-happy gunner is frying eggs on the barrel or something) If the latter, it really should only be happening to very inexperienced crews, which is definitely not the case. Vets and cracks have the same problem. I believe paying attention to your ROF to minimze weapon malfunction is in fact something they teach US soldiers in boot camp, but I might be wrong as I am so often when my lack of military knowledge meets my common sense. There's a lesson there, but I can't quite put my finger on it

a small extra question to clarify something for me, and please apologise as I have no firsthand military experience, which is probably where my question arises from... it appears at least borderline gamey or exploitive to me for infantry to suppress enemy infantry who are on the next floor up in a building, since for the most part that would seem to involve shooting their weapons up through the ceiling. I would consider this to be at the very least messy (dust), possibly dangerous (falling plaster, bricks, etc.) for the attacker doing so, and maybe even pointless due to solid reinforced concrete ceilings in large buildings. am I totally wrong here? is this actually how it's done in your training, chainsaw? i would think that going up one floor in a building during an assault (when I assume that you can only suppress enemies on that floor from inside the building once your men actually get up there, or from the outside before your men get up there) should be one of the most dangerous parts of the whole excercise, as the staircases are obvious bottlenecks for movement and ideal places for defensive ambushes...quite a bit easier to toss a grenade down a staircase than up one, for example. with your tactics and the way the game engine works, that difference between moving vertically through a building and moving horizontally through one of its floors is certainly nonexistent. hoping for input here, always willing to learn

@Vark about grenades in CMSF: Not sure about how that is yet...there is a lot of urban combat in CMSF, assaulting buildings floor by floor, rooftop to rooftop and so on, so that the use of grenades is certainly an important issue (pop a grenade through the door or around the corner of the corridor, wait for the boom or flash, then quickly follow up with small arms fire and manpower, we've all seen it on tv, some of us in real life too, i guess...). Having only started three weeks ago, I have been playing CMSF in real time mode so far because I wanted to see how it works for me (I'm a die-hard, pause-every-5-seconds micromanager) and because I like the idea of the advantages it offers regarding timing and reaction to surprises. However, the lack of the good old replay makes it impossible to watch the action close-up for any length of time, which is frustrating sometimes, so I haven't been able to analyse unit behavior in any detail yet. The Army boys seem to do pretty well assaulting buildings so far, so I've been focused on other things, like pathfinding, which is vastly different than in CMx1...I haven't really decided yet on which time-style I prefer for the new challenges in CMSF, both have their pros and cons. For detailed testing purposes, classic WEGO is of course the only option, and I'm going to go back to that for a while now to gain a deeper understanding of the mechanics. And I'll be pleased to try to answer your question(s) when I find the answers, as I'm attempting to become an active member of the community . Might I ask why you don't play CMSF? You stated that you didn't further up in this thread but I didn't seem to catch why not...just wondering. Is it the gazillion bugs in the original release? The modern setting? Or something totally different? I grant that it's a very different experience than CMx1 in some ways, but in all the right ways it's very CM to me, and I'm sure enjoying the heck out of it (not least because it REALLY positively surprised me by looking extremely good graphically, post-bugs that is, which is something I would never have expected or needed from a CM game, but it adds another level of immersion that gives me some mighty good kicks). Anyway, get back to you asap on the grenades thing...

This thread is such a great read, even though as a noob to CM forum jargon (albeit a vet of all CM games) I find myself having to do a little research sometimes to find out what abbreviations mean or even what people are talking about in general...also the amount of in-depth historical and gaming research some of you guys do to make points about realism and the strengths and weaknesses in the CMx1 engine is really commendable. I must admit my thoughts on CM never went that far before, for me it has always been about the feel of the total experience and not so much about the details. Though of course I have certain issues regarding realism on a more intuitive, common sense level. I actually loathe violence and war in the real world and therefore cannot really bring myself to read historical or technical documents about WWII, or modern warfare in the case of CMSF (beyond reading the extensive game manuals so I know what I'm doing, and what it's all based on). Sometimes I think it's weird that I get such a kick out of slaughtering virtual soldiers in my spare time, but then weirdness, like everything else in life, is always a function of the indivdual perspective, so whatever. I digress. So for me it's things like (in CMBB): Why do soldiers who panic under fire often run towards where all the bullets and shells are (very obviously) coming from. I know that's been worked over here already, so here's a better example that I haven't found anyone complaining about (though of course I haven't scoured every topic, of course, just being chatty, really): Why don't ATGs and mortars which, according to the mission briefing, have been dug in in excellent positions for several hours or even days to ambush enemies they more or less know are going to come through a certain area or corridor, have massive numbers of target reference points on exactly that terrain, particularly on roads that the enemy tanks are going to have to use, or along the edge of the forest that the enemy infantry battalion is bound to come out of? Wouldn't that be the next thing for them to focus on as soon as they'd finished with the shovels and spades and before they started picking their noses in anticipation of the action? Of course I'm unaware of the technical possibilities those historical weapons offered in that respect, but I'm pretty sure they could at least have made a list of or even memorized quite a few sets of settings on their guns that they had been able to work out with test rounds in all that time they were waiting for the attackers...dunno...I actually edited several scenarios to this effect when I thought it was realistic for it to be so. And when I shifted the balance too much that way, I'd go back and fiddle with unit size, type and experience as well as ammo allotments till I got a good feel. Again I have little to no military knowledge, but everyone seems to agree that a well-prepared defense can fairly easily overwhelm far superior numbers of attackers, even when the attackers have a pretty good idea of what they're up against (in which case they probably wouldn't attack at all but go around another way or shell the entire area to smithereens if they had the assets). That is a generalisation, I know, and blatantly disregards the whole doctrine issue and also situational options, like attempting to break out of encirclement and all kinds of other stuff, but please tell me I'm not totally wrong in this point... And of course, spotting (regardless of borg) has it's weirdnesses in CMBB, and obviously units 500 meters away from their commander and with no radio can't seriously be expected to be able to know what he wants them to do right now. IMHO I kind of doubt that a commander in a massive firefight where literally hundreds of small arms and MGs are firing more or less constantly within a 200 meter radius around him, possibly arty shells coming down relatively close by or a platoon of tanks manouvering and/or firing in the vicinity, can give any more than the very barest of orders (i.e. "CEASE FIRE!!!", "HEADS DOWN!!!") to his men at all, and can consider himself lucky if they register whith them, regardless of which means of communication he's trying to use. Even if neither he nor his men are actually under heavy direct fire themselves. Sensory overload is a serious obstacle to that sort of thing just like fear of death is...put them together and the cognitive, logical and rational faculties of even the best human being are reduced to a pretty low level.... But luckily, CMBB in this case is a game and lets me make some of my own decisions about realism so that I can adjust my gaming experience to my expectations somewhat. I just don't give units complex orders under aforementioned circumstances, and if I lose an potential advantage because I don't employ (or should it be exploit??) all the possibilities the game offers me at all times, then I still feel I've made the right choice. For me and my idea of gaming anyway. I believe one's personal gaming experience depends on how one chooses to play the game at least as much as it is on how the game is designed. And in CM, I have found my own personal workarounds for basically all the inherent shortcomings in the game design that might have bothered me if I were stubborn about sticking to all the "rules" and using all the possibilities to their full extent. That's one of the main reasons why I love the whole CM series . Why I'm cracking so wise about it I can't seem to figure out right now, but it does seem to me that several people here appear to complain about problems that are theirs to change. ;-)

New to the forums but still big on on the CM series...been off the wargaming dope for a few years since it is quite time-consuming and life got in the way a bit, but back now. I just found out about CMSF a few weeks ago and have been shooting up on that quite heavily since then. In the course of that I've also gone back to playing CMBB, for comparison kinda, and because experience has taught me that great games just don't get old and grey like all the mass-produced identical junk filling the shelves in the stores. And guess what - CMBB proved that theory to me once again. Still gives me the thrills like it did in '03 (and '04, and '05...)...just like Master of Orion or Baldur's Gate and other all-time greats, whenever I find the time. So, definitely YES I'm hot for CMC, in the core-of-the-sun fashion, and YES I'll buy it soon as it's out, and YESYESYES I'd love to betatest if you'll let me, but also YES I'm willing to wait patiently for BF and Hunting Tank to give us the goods when the goods are ready to be given. You guys (including the outsiders you trust like Hunting Tank) haven't disappointed me yet, your products have always been worth the wait, and good things just don't happen overnight (one-night-stands or a really intense sleep-robbing CM battle would be the exceptions here, but you get my drift). So keep up the great work, inform us when there's something worth telling, and stick to the coding when there isn't...no pressure as far as I'm concerned, I know you aren't just sitting around picking your noses like me. Hats off to what you do!