Ithikial_AU

<--- This guy. That CMBN pack was created before even the Market Garden module was released yonks ago so even that pack is missing some vehicle textures for a full CMBN installation. There are big gaps in the vehicle modding space in the community at the moment following Aris' departure. It probably comes down to bandwidth, but if some of the current crop of YouTubers wanted to bundle their mod folders and publish a 'pack' on the CMMODS website (while providing credit to the original mod authors), it would probably be the best bet in making mod installation simpler for the average player. It gives you a starting point with a video reference to what your game would look and sound like. However that's a big question for @Bootie if he's willing to entertain that idea.

Update planned for post R2V release.

Um... you do know which theatre CMFI is located in right? (I jest...)

US Army, US Marines, German Army and Canadian Army campaigns have been revamped to take advantage of CMSF2 capabilities. The British Army and Dutch Army campaigns are still being worked on by part of the volunteer beta testers behind the scenes. Preview of the Dutch Campaign I posted last night: As for you query, the answer is no. CM campaigns are still relatively small scale affairs and usually over a small time frame (a few days). A few days of combat doesn't turn a green horn into a crack commando. Those types of RPG elements are well outside the scope of CM.

Merry Christmas.

Good evening all, @BFCElvis has granted permission for some preview pics to be shared with the community of the upcoming Dutch Campaign revamp. (The remaining CMSF campaigns haven't been forgotten ). Dutch Campaign revamp for CMSF2 is being handled by @Imperial Grunt and Ithikial_AU. Some of the key changes from CMSF1 version (slight spoilers) - Reworked briefings to provide more narrative flavour around the Dutch effort and it's role in the wider conflict. - Lowered campaign difficulty to be more accessible to players of varying skill levels. (Don't worry I don't think having to undertake MOUT missions with a small Company(+) force will be considered "easy"). There was an initial 15% casualty rule in the old campaign, equating to automatic scenario and potentially campaign loss - this was considered pretty harsh. Some hunting around archive forum posts on the Battlefront forums helped identify issues. We were also aware the CMSF engine had evolved since the original release, with automatic weapons now being much more lethal making this parameter difficult for players to meet. - Victory conditions and campaign script reworked for some scenarios to reflect their close timing and geography between battles. For example, shared support assets, no ammunition resupply, the next missions time of day dependent on the outcome of battle before etc. - Infantry replenishment added at key points of the campaign. - Maps tweaked to take advantage of new map features (water, bridges, fortifications etc). Some urban maps have been cratered/ruined to reflect the timing of the campaign in the wider conflict. - Changes to AI plans to take advantage of new features introduced since CMSF’s release. - Joint ops for all. (You'll have to play through the campaign to know what that means). So I guess the cat is out of the bag. I was asked to come on board to help out earlier in the year and the first task I got was helping out on this one. Most of the work is done with scenarios individually tested and tweaks made. We're just waiting on briefing graphics and final blind runs through the entire campaign to see how it plays. Obviously R2V has priority at the moment but for the modern war fans there's something around the corner. Cheers Ithikial "MOUT again?" Tweaked mission conditions and maps. The Syrians get some new toys. Your air support is no longer invincible. Reworked maps. In this MOUT engagement the city isn't as pristine as it once was.

So no one wants to tackle this one as the Germans?

What is that? Steve has posted before on this, they know and appreciate their customer base is a niche market. Though selling more product than they expect is always a good thing they also know roughly the budget they have to work with. <Economist hat on and a quick google search because it's my lunch break and I'm lazy> In economics, productivity refers to how much output can be produced with a given set of inputs. Productivity increases when more output is produced with the same amount of inputs or when the same amount of output is produced with less inputs. <Hat off> Never assume having more people on staff means you will produce more. Anyone who's worked for an organisation with 100+ workers and a dedicated Human Resources team knows this first hand.

I've found over the years you need to be careful reading AAR's, particularly as reported in secondary sources focusing on a wider battle/campaign. Many authors generally don't drop down below the battalion level with their writings, saying "The 1st Battalion launched a dawn assault on the village of 'X'." At face value seems like overkill for such a small target. Dig a little deeper elsewhere and you realise it was only "A Company" with a few sections of HMG's provided for additional support. Rule of thumb read multiple sources and double/tripple check everything. When I committed to recreating Operation Windsor in Lions of Carpiquet campaign it was a Brigade level engagement but for the most part (and as you'd expect) the battalions were operating independently, so with the exception of two engagements there were never going to be more than one Canadian Battalion on screen at once with a set of objectives to meet. What turned out to be a huge help relatively late in the piece was discovering someone had scanned the original operational briefing material and made it available online in a PDF. Have this primary source really outlined how everthing was meant to proceed and what forces were committed when. But that doco allowed me to confirm was the intent to proceed forward in the standard 2 companies forward 2 companies behind box like shape the Commonwealth used quite regularly. It didn't happen on the ground because the German's shelled their deployment at kick off time and everyone was intermingled from the get go, which I could then represent in the appropiate sceanrio with the extensive use of reinforcements coming onto the map with no real order/command structure intact. Of course no plan survived contact with the enemy so this great source becomes useless after about Mission 2. There's another idea that I'm still toying with for over a year. A CM campaign on the same map where each scenario is one distinct objective. The scenario designer is like the battalion commander ordering he forces around with distinct objectives and the player is the poor junior officer that has to carry it out in the field. For instance, there's an end goal but to do that the player has to hop across a series of objectives successfully before progressing. Failures lead to repeats of the same objective rather than a whole new campaign path, though the player can also 'do what they want' if they feel like it - for instance ie hunting down additional enemy units early that may make future objectives easier to complete. Though I started to try and do this in CMBN as outlined here... http://community.battlefront.com/topic/126346-experimental-design-cm1-operations-in-cm2-video/ , I'm currently of the mind that maybe the modern era is a better fit where the player can have a much smaller effective force to cover a wider open map allowing much more freedom of movement and exploration. One massive problem however is the lack of carry over battle damage on the map. Doesn't make the concept impossible but makes the force selection somewhat more limiting - ie no major high explosive support that can level city blocks.

<--- Campaign author. Yeah mission 1 is just a simple test to see if you'll know about the minefields or not in Mission 2. It's a gentle ease you into the campaign type of mission. Mission 2. Yes they are meant to be plotted during deployment. Just try to replicate as displayed on the Tactical Map in the briefing - doesn't have to precise. There should be quite a bit of overlap between the fire missions. This is all to display the final stage of the creeping carpet bombardment that occured as the Canadians crossed over a mily of wheat fields to reach the town. If you don't follow this fire mission plan, later missions may 'look' a little funny where I had to recreate the map but in a badly damaged state. Enjoy and let us know how you got on.

Holy cow! I'm impressed. Anyone who plays around in the editor a bit realises the more tools you have to craft more 'lived in' maps allowing you to tell stories to more power you have.

I created that merged modpack yonks ago well before CMFB was on the scene. The pack was certainly setup for CMBN, not CMFB. Despite the face value similarities there are a truckload of different variants of vehicle in CMFB compared to CMBN so yes the files are never going to full line up. Not to mention there's no snow textured vehicles in CMBN. Aris disappeared around CMFB's release so not every vehicle received his love and attention.

Check your PM. Oh and the "Night" modtag is working for me. I have different muzzle flashes for day and night.

Pretty sure that's how it's meant to work. If you are using multiple support assets in the one fire mission then they must be all following the same parameters - therefore you adjust one you adjust them all. When CM2 first came out FO's could call in simultanous missions everywhere which wasn't very realistic for a 1940's battlefield, so it's one fire mission at a time for each observer/leader team. I think that was a change introduced with the 2.0 upgrade IIRC. The only exception to all this is setting up fire missions during deployment.

In the Nvidia Control Panel application ensure that "FXAA" is turned OFF for any CM title. It maybe on by default as part of the global settings.

Shameless self promotion. https://cmmodsiii.greenasjade.net/?p=4236 A little calculator to test different victory point allocations and player outcomes so you can get that 'feel' just right in terms of the degree of victory or defeat.

UK and Dutch campaigns are still being worked on.

What a nice surprise. :)

Rule of thumb is if in doubt post it. If it looks odd when you see it in game immediately make a save game file just in case.

- It was made before machine guns became more lethal with the 2.0 upgrade. - It was a community release made virtually right after release so I'm guessing the author was getting used to the editor etc. - Feel free to jump into the editor and make a better one. The 29th ID is certain'y a good division of focus. - The Omaha mission could work if changes were made to that scenario to account for dot point 1. Having the naval support from deployment to lay down a barrage? It could even work as part of a campaign still if the campaign script and overall design accounts for the horrendous losses the player is going to experience.

Could the friendly edge for the scenario/map in question be set up the wrong way in the campaign? TacAI when controlling broken troops will naturally try to head in that direction thinking it's towards friendly lines?

Please keep me informed. @Warts 'n' all - can you take a look at the posts above, did you hit any troubles likes this when you played the campaign last year?

Okay I loaded up the mission file and plotted all the artillery missions and hit go and everything played smoothly. There will be a 'pause' given the amount of orders that needs to be initially processed even before the progress bar pops up, so don't hit any other key or mouse button even though it looks like the game has suddenly frozen up. I think that will cause a crash to desktop (a CM thing). Needless to say the progress bar will also not be at it's fastest. This scenario is certainly on the scale of the CMFI stock scenario "Hot Mustard" which also put some strain on people's computers when CMFI was released. (I didn't make it! ) A few ideas: - To confirm you do own the vehicle pack? The game shouldn't let you play this campaign if you don't but thought I'd check. - It could be your PC. (Mac's sorry I'm out of ideas...) I'm running an i7 that's a few generations old now but still plays anything CM2 can throw at it. - Mods being used. I think the latest popular sound mods are larger files and the need to play so many incoming artillery files at once may cause a strain on the CPU. Perhaps drop the sound mods for this one. I don't think it's the campaign file for a number of reasons: - It's been out for years now with over 1,000 downloads and only a handful of people have reported the issue. The upgrade to v4 of the engine also didn't break it. - The first "Mission 0" (The recce) and "Mission 1" (this one) don't have a large connection that would break something in mission 1. The only real influence the recce has on the campaign is to warn the player of the minefields across most of his front and a chance to pick off a few of the German sentries before the main assault. If it's any conciliation I've always wanted to tweak mission 4 of this campaign (which you play if you lose this one) to be a standalone scenario for H2H play. May take another look at that for you.

<--- Campaign author. Ouch. Quick question for you both, did you win or lose the first recon engagement? @ChappyCanuck @Stonecutter

The installers were cleaned up a while ago so users didn't have to load a lot of updates. CMBN being out for the longest means it has received the most updates. You may have missed one along the way. Possible solution: De-liscence and uninstall your existing CMBN and then install with the full installer. Then re-enter the serial numbers your received when you purchased CMBN content. Should be good to go and everything will be installed in the right order. Hope that helps.