stoex

While I agree with you in principle, womble, I would like to say way to go with the commas there. 7 in one sentence is really rackin' em up! Took me three readings to figure out what you were saying...

I guess that probably is the tricky part...although infantry do this just fine all the time - you know, stop to fire while moving, then continue on along their path. Regardless of the speed at which they are moving (except FAST). Seems it's possible, but obviously there is a difference between infantry and vehicles in this regard. Dunno, just 0.02 from central Europe in the middle of the night .

Sorry Frankster, but you are indeed wrong here. Distance is measured from the units current position always. Check out the screenies below: LOS taken from units position, note the range... LOS taken from first waypoint, range still shown as 31 meters although it should be more like 8 meters now. Once more for good measure . Range should now be about 1 meter from the last waypoint, but is still shown as 31 meters. Works the same for covered arcs too. This bugs me quite a bit as well, which is why I took the time .

Try "A Bridge too close" by bardosy. Great little mini-campaign with a company of paratroopers. You get some more units in the last battle, but by then you will probably be depleted enough to need them . bardosy is just reworking this campaign a bit and will soon reupload it to the repository (I guess?), so keep an eye on that.

Another good little campaign to try out if you want to learn is bardosy's "A Bridge too Close" mini-campaign (played as US). It has three battles on the same map - first is a US paratrooper attack on a lightly defended bridge, followed by a counterattack by the Germans in HTs, and finally, for the finale, a two-company-per-side slugfest after both sides receive armored reinforcements. Great fun as it builds up from small infantry units sneaking through the hedgerows to a big fat all-out battle with all kinds of goodies and unusual units. Just finished it and recommend it highly. Not too difficult either IMO.

Just to add something else: By no means does the designer have to include any of the core units for either side in any particular battle. He might for example want to simulate some rear-guard action or a battle on a different part of the front which has some implications for an upcoming battle of the player's core forces (e.g. "ambush the enemy reinforcements before they can join the fray to make it easier for your main battle force"). He could then use an individual set of units for each side to play out that engagement, then depending on the outcome, bring back the core units for the next battle.

It's really quite simple: If the campaign designer so chooses, he can give the AI opponent in a campaign 'core' forces as well. This is so that fighting the same unit in two different battles can be simulated correctly. But it is entirely the designer's choice - he can also assign completely new enemy forces for each battle if he wants. Just depends on what he is trying to simulate. It does not mean by definition that if you do better, you will be facing smaller forces down the line, as any battle could contain any number of fresh, never-seen-before units on either side. Theoretically you could have something like the old CMx1 operations if you gave both sides only core forces (+ reinforcements) and let them fight over pieces of a larger map (meaning if player gets a win in one battle, shift the next battle towards the opponent's side of the meta-map, vice-versa if the player suffers a loss). Only downside to this is no persistent map damage.

A couple things to check for: 1. Do all the platoon HQs still actually have their radios? Meaning the radio operator isn't a casualty and the radios are shown in the GUI? 2. The radios only work when HQs are stationary, not while moving. Radio comms usually are made a few seconds after ending a move order. Your platoon HQs definitely need to be stationary to reach higher command via radio, and therefore also to call in arty and mortars via radio.

finalcut, c'mon man! We were doing so well ignoring him. EVERYONE else on the forum got it, we were being disciplined and relentless - and then you went and ASKED HIM A QUESTION??????? Nay, THREE QUESTIONS!!!!!!! How is that ignoring him? Wonderful show, lad, you ruined it well and good. Expect your court-martial within the next few days. Sheesh! :D

LemuelG, by your description, I think the main problem here is the "advancing along a 500m long causeway covered by multiple HMGs" part. True, the movement AI appears to be aggravating the problem a bit, but what you want your GIs to do here seems like a recipe for mass suicide anyway. Why do your troops have to advance along a long, well-covered road in the first place? Doesn't seem like something that would go well IRL either. Even if the units were spaced better, they would surely take enough casualties pretty soon to pin them, and then it would be game over anyhow. It sure doesn't sound like a scenario I'd want to play, can't you find some other way to let the GIs attack? Or prep the defenders with arty/mortars/direct fire to reduce their effectiveness?

re-bump +filler

Caen of Whoopass...

"Caen and Abel" ?

Michael, I had the same problem with the missing crewman. After checking and counting several times I posted about it here and was very embarrassed when I then found that they are actually all there - problem is that in the crew list one of them does not have his function mentioned (forget which one). This causes a kind of optical illusion effect (at least in my brain, and I guess in your brain too), that made me think there were only four weapon symbols there as well. But they seriously are all there, every time, unless one has been made a casualty. Count them pistols again!

Also, I have frequently seen that even when the first spotting round (for a point target mission) is bang on target, another spotting round is called for, which usually lands somewhere else. Afterwards FFE is called and comes in on target. Shouldn't the spotter call for FFE immediately when the first spotting round lands on target? It seems there is a general minimum of two spotting rounds before FFE is ordered. Is this realistic?

Nope, but I have noticed that quite frequently when splitting teams, some of the teams seem to get ammo that they don't need (e.g. 9mm for teams without SMGs or pistols).

I don't think it would be fair to call this abstracted. Speed of advance and possibility of getting hit yourself are very different for "firing on the move" vs. "stop to fire, then continue to move". Apples and oranges in my eyes. If you want to test how well this "abstraction" works, fire up a CMx1 test scenario with a couple tanks and see how your tanks perform with HUNT vs, say, FAST. (Don't forget to run the test 50 times to get a statistical spread)

Interesting point, YankeeDog, and I personally think it is true to a certain degree that BF must limit the CM player in some ways to allow the AI to keep up. However, in the case at hand, the return of the CMx1 "HUNT" command would actually benefit the AI IMHO. If scenario designers had the option of scripting the AI units to HUNT to certain locations, it would make it easier to design attacking AI scripts for sure. Come to think of it, the implementation of HUNT would be the first real trigger in the AI scripts, allowing "if->then" behaviour of sorts. Just think of the repercussions if you could tell the AI to interrupt its advance if it makes contact with the enemy as opposed to blindly moving forward to the objective area... Would be an excellent addition to the game IMHO.

Um....careful Steve, there was a "HUNT" command in CMx1 which caused tanks to move to contact, stop, fire until the contact was dead or out of LOS, and continue on with their move. Actually, the return to this function of "HUNT" is what a lot of people have been advocating. I admit I don't understand the difficulties involved in coding such behavior, but "tanks fire on the move instead of coming to a halt" is by no means "a fundamental problem that all CM games have". This I know.

Bump-de-bump so maybe a beta tester can make a comment on this...

ian.leslie, Here is a link to a post by Winecape (who is a beta tester) in the abovementioned thread. Check it out.

I think the great coding god would spit out Emrys (hopefully after chewing him a bit) and turn his back on us forever, possibly vomiting hexadecimal goo on us beforehand. I would consider using someone else, honestly.

It will be announced on the forum (in the announcements section, surprise!) and on BFC's homepage. I don't think there will be any direct notification for game owners. But rest assured it will be announced long enough before it is released that you will have enough time to get ready for it and won't miss out.

To be FLARE with you, I must admit I had a hunch you were going to show up here sooner rather than later, Ken...

Don't know if you mean this thread, but it's a nice read anyway...