stoex

Wait, you can spot foxholes through a high wall? That's not good...

Nice going on the file extensions there, mjkerner, I wouldn't have thought that would work. Please do keep us posted on your possible all-powerfulness, as I have a longish wish list in case you are.

Considering what we've achieved so far, I think we all qualify for Congress seats. Except if you can't vote for cheesecake in Congress, I want a Senate seat. I KNOW you can vote for cheesecake in the Senate, I've seen them do it.

Cold Adult Beverages are definitely important, but please don't forget the cheesecake. For goodness' sake don't forget the cheesecake! :eek: I need those pauses long enough to get myself a Cold Adult Beverage and a nice piece of cheesecake...maybe the reason why I play PBEM and not RT MP is because I need so many long pauses to get drinks and cake. Hmmmm...

True, YankeeDog. But as far as I know this can only happen when playing the AI, not another human player. I think this is what Mr. Crowley is advocating to avoid 'gamey' late game behaviour by human opponents.

My dog votes no to MP RT pause and yes to my giving him my lunch. My five-year old son votes 'my big dinosaur goes RRRRAAAAWWWRRRRR'. My girlfriend votes that I should get to work instead of reading the BF forums. Since hers is the only vote that matters, I vote yes to Erik's pony as well. And yes to cheesecake. Mmmmmhhhhmmm cheesecake

Good fit? Dunno, looks like a pretty deep gravity well under that stone bridge. I'd hate to have to run a train along those tracks as well. Just another way in which bridges aren't quite up to par. Driving a vehicle under a bridge will beam it up on top of the bridge briefly as it passes the middle of it, then back down off the other side. Makes for good shooting for guns waiting on the upper level...

Ah, sorry, I didn't catch that from your previous post. Would be interesting to know what happens when you get closer, since hedgerow fighting does'nt often allow for ranges of 300 meters.

akd, Not in my experience. To be fair, I haven't had much time to play since v1.01, but before that my troops were usually spotting trenches and foxholes well before spotting the units inside them at any range, at least in the open. Which, by the way, I find kinda makes sense, since the trench/foxhole is meant to conceal the troops inside it.

Fuser, really nice work. One question: Why is it that in the shot with the gridded terrain some of the trees don't seem to show the closest LOD, while others right next to them do? And in the shot without the grids, all the trees are back to normal close-up LOD. Just wondering...

I notice one thing that hasn't been mentioned in this regard is the fact that these foxholes will allow the attacker to more easily spot possible defender locations, since half the foxholes will be on the 'wrong' side of the hedgerow. The attackers will spot the empty half of the foxholes relatively quickly, so scenario designers will have to provide extra foxholes that are left empty in order to fool the attackers.

I agree, IMHO...but even average biathletes hit their targets more often than not, and though the targets are only 50 meters away, they are only 45mm across in the prone shoot - a lot smaller than a human head. Also, in terms of the tests here, we are talking about rested troops, not ones who are exhausted, and their stress levels should be comparatively low as there is no-one shooting at them.

Steve, I completely agree with you...maybe I should have phrased my earlier post differently. I really can't imagine that what Thomm indicated is really the case. As you say, we all would have noticed that long ago. I guess I was really making fun of Thomm in some obscure way because I thought his idea was patently silly or impossible. Apologies, Thomm! I am also aware that beyond the trunks, trees cannot be 1:1 for reasons of computing power, and that in itself is not a problem. That said, I also tend to agree that LJFHutch's picture above indicates that something isn't working quite the way it should realistically be. That number of trees shouldn't be blocking LOS or LOF as dramatically and uniformly as they appear to be doing. Unless undergrowth is a LOT more abstracted than it appears to be. One slight issue I have with CMx2 trees in general is that they always have the foliage beginning at the same (relatively low) height regardless of other circumstances. What I mean is, in a dense Central European forest the space from the ground to about 5 meters is generally pretty open (at least in summer) due to the fact that very little light falls through the foliage of the tall trees. That means there is very little undergrowth except on the forest's edge and on possible clearings, and there aren't a lot of low branches with leaves on them to block view either. This counts especially for deciduous trees. There isn't really a good "dense forest" deciduous tree in CMx2 as far as I'm concerned, but I live with it just fine .

You're very welcome, MOSwas71331 . I just noticed that womble beat me to that answer actually (not the first time we cross-posted, I think...), so we'll just extend the thanks to him! Another tip, coming at your troubles from a very different angle: Do you have any friends who also play the game and live near you (and are a little more experienced )? If so, invite one over and have him play the game and explain stuff to you as you watch. It really worked wonders for a friend of mine who was frustrated with his initial experiences with CMSF when I gave him a 3 hour workshop.

I have not done any tests , but to me it appears that the snipers may be shooting at something that isn't the visual representation of what they should be shooting at. And I don't think this necessarily applies only to snipers, as akd indicated. It might also explain some of the gratuitous firing at TC's by other infantry. Does that make sense? I'll try to make it so by way of examples: Maybe the code has them thinking they can see part of the TC they can't really see? Maybe they are shooting at another member of the tank crew because they think they can see him (better than the TC)? Maybe they just don't see the tank at all in terms of shooting at the exposed TC? Meaning they don't recognize him as being only partly exposed and are doing their best to shoot at 'visual center mass'. Or any number of even weirder things....

One thing to note is that there is a small button above the command pane that cancels all of a unit's current orders. It looks like a stop sign. Another thing to note is that when you delete waypoints with backspace, combat orders attached to those waypoints are deleted as well. So no need to do both, except in the case that a unit has a combat order before its first waypoint, meaning attached visually to the unit itself. That one needs to be deleted manually using the delete key, but it is the only one. Third thing to note is that it is not generally a good idea in most cases to give your units more than a few movement orders anyway. Chances are those orders will go to hell anyway because something will happen within a few seconds . Stick with 3-4 move orders at once for each unit, and you won't have to do so much backspacing if you change your mind either. Well, since there is no AI plan for the US in that scenario, they will never move except in self-preservation. If they spot you, they will shoot at you, however. Anyhow, I haven't followed this entire thread and don't know if you are playing RT or TB. If you are playing RT, I would suggest playing TB and taking your time over things anyway, or at least pause to give orders in RT. I know I couldn't abide with the clickfest of pauseless RT for a million dollars. If that was the only way to play, I wouldn't own this game (same reason I don't own a whole lot of games... ).

Do tell of your suspicion, akd. I would be very interested - and of course treat it as what it is prior to testing, which is informed speculation.

Ken, I'm not sure that is the way I would describe it. Initially vehicles never overshoot their paths, they tend to undershoot them instead if they have another move order after the one they are on. The current move order vanishes before the vehicle reaches its endpoint if there is another move order following, and it (sometimes) begins to turn. If the vehicle needs to stop to turn because the turn is too tight, it will always stop (center mass) right bang on the waypoint in question unless the terrain precludes this (true, however, that if there is space they will often leave the move path to make a wider curve, this may be what you meant. Keep reading anyway ). Unfortunately this is not visible in TB mode, since the move paths are not shown in the replays. This is an advantage of RT (one of many...). Anyhow, while testing this out I found a strange bug in the behaviour of a Kübelwagen tasked to race around a map with some tight turns in its path. The Kübel has a Rotate order attached to a waypoint in the middle of its path ('cause I want it to rotate before continuing to move). Well, the strange thing is, the Kübel continues to move without rotating first (makes a biiiig curve instead), but takes the Rotate order along with it (visibly even in TB mode!) all the way to the end of its entire move path and then executes it there. Intentional? I don't think so... Have a save file of this. Two, actually - one in TB and one in RT (so you can see the move orders while watching). Both are in setup phase on a test map. Anyone want them?

You have mentioned this twice now, Thomm...I hope you are not right about this, because if you are, it is simply horrible. It would skewer spotting so bad where there are trees involved that it hardly bears thinking about. And it would be the burial of realism in a lot of circumstances. A line of trees two or three deep might as well be considered a brick wall for spotting purposes, which obviously is not the case IRL, underbrush or not. Either that or trees might as well be trunks only and we could seriously save on FPS by just not showing the foliage at all by default, as it woudn't really exist for game purposes. Either way - don't even get me started on how wacky i would consider the decision making process that led to such a design. I beg for Steve to show up and say you are wrong. If you are right, I will lean out of the window here and call it a fatal flaw in the game design. Not kidding.

Nice one! Will download and try it out. I might mix and match a bit with the originals - my feeling is I want the regular infantry icon to be round instead of square. But overall a great way to get more at-a-glance info! Thanks

It would be really really nice if that carry over could be removed for firing at vehicles, though. It makes a certain amount of sense to keep firing at infantry targets that go out of LOS behind walls, hedges, trees etc., but none at all to fire at tank commanders that have buttoned up. Once the hatch closes, the mission is accomplished and the firing men's attention should be turned elsewhere.

I stopped playing CMSF when I found that all the RPG-7 rounds had the exact same serial number. Totally broke the immersion.

Is this some kind of intricate buildup for a "The patch is finally up!!!1!!11!one!!!"-type joke thread? If it is then it's base and despicable! In case it's not that, check out http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HDf07ZoVpoQ. And follow up with if you need help with the whip stitch.

I'll take a pound of 'Ten Commandments' and two pounds of 'Minshull Crab', please.

I'm pretty sure we can still make it be about a quilt if you would like that.