ZPB II

Well played, good sir.

The CV90 is an excellent tool, but most of the fancy rounds are designed for the 40mm Bofors cannon. Because the CV is made by BAE Systems AB, of which Bofors is a part of. Do take a while and listen to that impressive exhaust note, one I wish a modder would implement in the game.

Well, an ATGM vehicle is mostly just that, a plus-sized ATGM launcher on wheels. It doesn't really have much uses. Is there an army that conquered a place using light ATGM platforms? I remember the Toyota wars stuff, but... Well, I can't speak for the US Army (which of course makes this somewhat moot, since that's the crux) but in the FDF what training snipers and scouts received in our armoured jaeger formations differed very little in terms of CMSF scope. Everything that needed to be known in a tactical engagement was taught to even the most basic infantrymen. The difference is how much you train, and well, you can set your rifle squads as regular and snipers to elite if you want to. But there simply aren't many sets of theories that scouts are taught that jaegers aren't that directly relate to a firefight. How does one teach someone to be better at spotting? Silouttes of enemy targets, the theory of camouflage and movement, enemy tactics regarding placement, the strategy of attack & defense regarding the best possible locations and so on are taught to everyone. Our rifle squads had the same expensive Israeli TI kit, binoculars, scopes etc. as the scouts...And knew how to operate them. I'm not seeing the big deal regarding these two units. Of course there is always minor tweaking to do but I simply cannot imagine ATGM vehicles and scouts & snipers in CSMF as fundamentally flawed.

Awesome! Thanks.

Ah, but here you make the assumption that rune is capable of grammar and semantics, something I personally would not be so sure of.

Ah, gotcha. Guess I got too used to BMP-2s looking like Christmas lights through a thermal. I'd still like to hear how the engineers plan to get this thing to work when it's moving. You got the noise, you got the dust, you get the little pieces of earth flying in arches behind the tracks, hell, you got the damn tank making tracks in the ground...Ok, may'be it's a wee bit harder to spot and especially to aim at properly, but, is it worth the cost? On defense, I can see the advantage...

Dust, mud, maintenance...Just a few things to pop in my mind in a couple of seconds...I can see it working when the tank is still, but when it's in motion...Maybe it's teflon coated? Then there's indeed the thermal imaging issue.

Most of that goes into the category "lack of polish" meaning the UI issues and the manual. Yeah, telescoping optics are useless, but recon vehicles do spot better, just not as hidden as they should be. ATGM vehicles were utterly worthless when CMSF was released, I don't know exactly what's been done with them but when used realistically (keyhole position far, far away with 0,75-1 km LOS) I've had tremendous success with them. I'm on the fence about scouts and snipers, I found they accomplish their task pretty fine. Don't treat them like Navy SEALs in ghillie suits, you rarely see that on the battlefield. They're already small teams that spot well and remain out of sight, what more would there be to add as special training? Most armed forces "run of the mill" scouts and snipers don't really receive that much special training to make them distinguished, we're not talking premier or special forces here. I just feel people load up terrible expectations on grunts that are given a scoped rifle and taught how to orienteer. Hell, most scouting training has nothing to do with the actual battle itself, but the actions preceding it. But yeah, there are issues, some severe some not so. It's not perfect, but damn good. I'd still go so far as to say it is pretty damn realistic. Rare are the people who would want to play a game that goes further on the realism scale than this. I'm talking scenarios which consist of watching your men count grains of sand, hoping for some action...Or battles with the amount of artillery and CAS that you'd expect on a frontline sector, mainly walking casually over smoldering ruins...

I'm gonna call 'em "Stella." Just because it's a nice name.

Also one point that I haven't really tested but thought it bring up...The engine abstracts damage to buildings, which is why you see soldiers spotting and shooting through walls. The building has taken damage so the game abstracts holes and such. So I was wondering if you could shoot out of a well-ventilated damaged building with, say, an SPG-9.

Don't rely on the circle graphic at all, CAS will engage targets far from it if they spot them. Even friendlies. It's much worse in CMA though, I remember one campaign mission where, in low-light conditions my defensive positions were rocketed to oblivion by Hinds when the circle ended some 250 meters away. It also depends on the quality of the spotter and the aircraft itself. No FLIR on those babies. Try calling some archaic fast movers dropping dumb bombs with a Conscript DRA HQ team and watch where they end up.

I have to disagree a bit, I mean, I can't argue the fact that you have people asking questions but I wouldn't go so far as calling this being clogged with players asking questions because the manual is incomprehensive or somesuch... I found it took very little in getting acquinted with pretty much every feature on offer. I didn't read the manual from cover to cover but it catered to all questions I had. There are certain "fuzzy" issues, but those I like, because it makes things more realistic. I don't recall seeing a mention or indicator about which ATGMs pack a soft-launch, feature though. Like, I'm pretty sure the AT4 can be fired from buildings in CMSF, and the US army for a few years has only bought AT4 CS versions with reduced backblast...But the game doesn't mention it being the CS version. On the other hand, I am fairly confident that the backblast on the normal version is of not such power that it would completely prohibit firing from enclosed spaces, only making precautions more important... Then again, I consider myself good at playing games, since I consistently play games really well in statistical terms (Kill/Death ratio in Bad Company 2 and Black Ops, Win/Loss rate in League of Legends, arena rating in World of Warcraft etc.) so I confess I might not be in the middlegrounds of the learner curve.

Well, you got the nice nifty binocular function, is it Z and X? I found that really immersive.

You guys are placing rune in a very uncomfortable position with your assumptions. Like he said, don't read too much into dates...

While the game is running, open up task manager and set the CMSF process priority to High. Also, since CMSF only uses a single core, set it to use your main core instead of jumping between them. I'm sure Redwolf will arrive momentarily to provide more indepth expert advice than I can provide, but try these out.

The thing is, the Gil has a soft-launch feature and should be fireable from enclosed spaces. Also, the NATO module treats ATGMs really strangely, IMO. The Spike-MR comes with a tripod, but you can't deploy it ingame. Also the Eryx has a tripod, but is not deployable.

The only times when I miss really smooth movement is when I zoom in real close and try to take screenshots of my pixeltruppen. WASD movement up close is reasonably good, but could be improved a bit.

Is this in?

Hhmm, cheapest flights to Chicago in March are around 1400 euros...Hhmm...A chance to see the evil Rune, whom I many times shot down in IL-2 and dropped copious amounts of napalm on in Battlefield Vietnam, he may be harboring some sort of revenge...

They hop over it, neatly animated.

I just played the mission. Since the briefing told me the bridge was wired, I shot it thoughoutly with airbursts and that was it. I also disregarded the ROE a bit and shot linear airburst fires on all the roads, neutralizing a lot of the opposition. All in all took 3 wounded and 2 LAVs disabled.

Regardless, I have seen squads take out IFVs (not MBTs) with hand grenades in CMSF, although it happens rarely.

While were at it, can BFC please code a CMBN artillery interface for the iPad, I'd just love to plot my barrages and air support in a more tactile, hands-on way.

I can't say for sure but I am 90% confident they will be handled like in CMx2. If you order your infantry to target something, they will fire rockets at it and sometimes by themselves, but mostly at AFVs and infantry in hard cover. Rifle grenades will likely be used similarly to 40mm grenades in CMSF. A minor nit to pick, but the Panzerfaust, like all recoilless weapons makes more of a loud "bang" instead of any sort of "whoosh."

That was probably jwxspoon's preview, since I recall him living there. Speaking of which, what has happened? Where is that old man now? Glad to see rune is still around. *waves*