herr_oberst
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Posts posted by herr_oberst
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OMG simply must include Space Lobsters of Doom (c'mon, someone had to say it).
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I don't have a firm answer to that, but my experience might be suggestive. I'm using an Imac with 4GB installed. Steve in his performance guideline states that FI needs 1.5GB free. FI has a tendency to lock up when loading a map or a saved game. With less than 2GB free memory, that tendency is much more pronounced.
Michael
Dang Emrys, march yourself right to the OWC site and get some more RAM for that iMac. Depending on the vintage, a pair of 4GB RAM chips will do you a wonder of good overall, and IIRC, it's a simple "open the memory panel, and push in the 2 new chips".
Or go the Hackintosh route and build a i7 3770k, Terabyte HDD, 16 Gig, GeForce GTX 660 Ti Mountain Lion machine for ~ 1,000.
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Just a tip -- in case you didn't know this:
When you draw contours, do not draw them as lines on your map. That is unnecessary, produces way too many "hard" elevation points and strains the system.
No, I didn't know that fact. Interesting. I had been drawing contour lines. But I'll try swapping over to "inflection points" to see if that helps. I had wondered if it would be easier on the engine to actually map out every point as a hard elevation.
Theoretically, there's nothing left for the engine to do if you've spec'ed every action square (insanity, I know). I imagine that the map file size would be big, but no larger than the engine has to render in memory?
Place your elevations as dotted lines, with the elevation dots as far apart as possible. You place a dot only where a contour line would change direction. Also, place one or two dots for your lowest point and one or two dot for your highest point.I did start putting 2-3 points in depressions or 'peaks' to keep from getting pool tables when there wasn't anything above that elevation (I could cheat and look at the terrain that was outside the bounds of the map to infer a height).
I'll make a copy of the map, and start eliminating points to see if that improves things in the 4x4 map.
Thanks for the tips. Always welcome.
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4km x 4km seems too big for my current setup. The contour levels were all done save for some tweaking. So I tried adding the roads, and after that, was unable to get cleanly into the 3d view. Multiple crashes. Deleted the roads, and could get back into the 3d view again.
So I'm backing off to 3k x 4k map and changing the area selected to see how that goes.
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I'm working on creating a map for use in CM. No it isn't in Italy, but is in the Ukraine, near the Mius river. Been re-reading "Decision in the Ukraine" by Nipe, and working on a map from those battles. I think it would be cool to "see" the terrain being fought over, and perhaps create a campaign using the map. We'll see about that later.
Right now just working on terrain contours using an overlay from a 1943 Truppenausgabe photocopy from the Library of Congress in DC.
I'll see if I can post some screenshots along the way if anyone is interested. Right now I basically have a 4kx4k pool table with some swales in it, so not much interesting yet. The eastern portion of the map should be fun to work on and interesting to view due to the terrain (over where Regiment Eicke did some of its fighting).
More later.
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Haven't read the whole thread, but does anyone else think it could be interesting if MGs could be given "targets" like indirect weapons. 'Linear' target areas, where the MG would walk the bursts up and down the line, or circular 'area' targets with a similar aiming logic designed to spread the aiming points?
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Any tips on how to get a decent looking stream running down a slope?
In the first klick, it goes from about 200m down to 165m. The stream crosses three contour lines, but looks like a chasm at the higher elevations.
The ground looked good until I placed the water, it's behaving like it wants to be a lake. In another klick and a half it will turn flatter and marshy.
Thanks in advance.
Oh, and the "special map overlay" is freakin' awesome! Scan the Truppenausgabe, cut out the 1km x 1km section and convert to bmp, dump it into the Z folder and off to the races.
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@herr_oberst: My dual-core system is 4-5 years old, has only 4MB RAM, and uses a 1GB NVidia 9800 card that's a good 2 years old now.
Yeah, what kills me is that my current Mini has a whopping 256MB video ram, less than the wife's iMac even (How in the blazes did that happen? I must have had too much Lagavulin when I made those two hardware purchases). And I am fond of all the eye candy that is possible with mods.
I started working on a 4k x 4k map based on a section of the Mius River Bend, but gave up due to frequent crashes.
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Dang, now I absolutely HAVE TO up my hardware so I can play on that map. My pitiful video is heartbreaking when I see the pics others post.
Maybe it's time to build a killer hackintosh, eyeballing an i7-3770k, 16GB RAM, GeForce 660ti w/1GB build.
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Ammo status?
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;1399686']So I´m advancing a buttoned Tiger I towards a known sherman position. The Tiger is pointed exactly towards the Sherman. In the exchange the Shermann fires three shots (hit/ricochet))' date=' the Tiger one (miss) at abot 200m. Two of the three Sherman hits cause spalling and a casualty in the tiger. the crew bails. Is this even remotely likely (the spalling)? We are talking hits against the thick armor of the tiger turret.[/quote']
That impact energy has to go somewhere, either deformation of the armor on the outside, or cracks and/or spalling on the inside. Being pointed exactly at the Sherman is actually a bad idea, as you leave little chance for deflection. Angling your approach increases the chance for a deflection, and increases the effective armor thickness relative to your target.
If your commander is peeking out his vision slits to direct the tank, and takes a couple of hits on the cupola, I can hazard a guess at who the casualty was, which might be why the crew bailed on you.
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surrender Dorothy
For those of you in the DC area you may recall (if it isn't still there) that spray painted on the RR trestle (heading towards VA) over the beltway near Silver Spring - right before the Mormon Temple tower comes into view. The all time greatest bit of graffitti anywhere.
You mean this one?
This picture is old, but yes, it is an all time favorite.
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I don't know what you have, but it's possible you may be giving up too soon. I have an iMac with about the same configuration as Kettler's except that mine has an ATI Radeon HD 4670 card. The graphics are adequate for play with texture quality set at Balanced and 3D modeling set at Faster, but aesthetically disappointing. I would love to have a more powerful card and IMO the biggest drawback of the iMac is the inability to upgrade the graphics card. I have no idea if the newer models will offer any improvement in graphics.
Michael
I just have to stop being a dinosaur with my Mac. Eyeballing the current iMac i7 w/1 gig VRAM and an 6970M video card. Just have to get the scratch together. My only disappointment with having moved away from Microsoft is the gaming. Everything else blows away Windows (developer by trade).
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Aeons ago, it seems, there was a really nice "Rules of Engagement" set of recommendations put together for CMBO (do even half of you know what that is, and have you played it?).
Those were, based on a gentleman's agreement, to set limits to what could be purchased in a QB. Easy enough to limit arty, max bore on a tank cannon, etc, and made for some very playable QB's given that each side honored those limits. This could mitigate Arty as the "Queen Bit%h of the battlefield" in CMFI.
That could be a reasonable solution. Of course, the AI could give a hoot with respect to any "gentleman's agreement": in that case, be as gamey as the AI (i.e., Charles) would be. 99% arty, 1 FO, and three snipers (just to take VL's) compose your force? Rock on!
Perhaps someone more ambitious than I could look those up from the CMBO forums, and post a similar for CMFI. I, sadly, can't even run CMFI with any playability on my current Mac, else I would so similar (still waiting to buy a new iMac, perhaps until after 10/24/2012 if MacRumors website holds true).
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While I'm sure we would all like to see lower costs for the games we like, I like to think that a portion of my $$ spent on the games goes not just to cover the cost for coding, artwork, testing, and some profit, but also to invest in the future of BFC.
Their margins are what is going to determine their future as a business, and my gaming future. I am very happy that they've been able to bring additional people onto their staff, and accelerate the development tempo. CMFI was a big, appreciated surprise, and I bought it (even if it outstrips what my machine can run today).
Heck, if I hit a lottery, one of the first things I'd do (well, second - first would be to buy the biggest bad-a$$ Mac I could get, maybe a 27" iMac with dual Thunderbolt displays) is follow the Weasel tracks and convince Steve to take a 'silent partner' investor so they could build more, better, faster. Felt that way since the Alpha AAR of CMBO. It felt like Squad Leader come to the PC. In the new engine, I'd like the whole war done. I'd love for all the little quirks in the game that drive us nuts sometimes to be researched, fixed, and QA'd. But there are limits to what BFC can front in development costs, or spend in non-revenue-generating tasks and still grow their company.
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every time I start to get ahead of myself and careless ND snaps me back to reality.
Bil
Is that a 'snaps' or 'slaps'?
Anyway, I just wanted to weight in with another mention of "Great AAR" from both you guys.
Sadly, my Mac Mini just isn't up to CMFI (grumble grumble), but I'm saving up for a iMac that should do just fine. So you guys are all I have at the moment.
Many thanks.
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Complain, complain, complain. The great thing about Cmxx is that you can make your own QB maps and post them for the user base if you think the delivered ones aren't 'fair'.
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I was looking up the acronyms AAR and DAR on the net, and discovered that DAR is not listed as an official acronym, unlike AAR.
This is the site that drew my attention to this: http://acronyms.thefreedictionary.com/DAR
http://acronyms.thefreedictionary.com/AAR
According to this site, unlike AAR, there is no DAR acronym, so i typed "during action report" in Google and could not find it defined as an acronym.
So with that in mind, it seems reasonable to drop DAR as an acronym, and use AAR as the standard acronym for all CM game reports, irrespective of whether the battles are ongoing at the time of reporting, as i assumed DAR's were, or have been completed, as i assumed AAR's were.
noob, you've introduced a whole new level of grogginess to the forums. I'll be the first to sling a disparaging 'grog' comment your way (all in good jest, lest this be misinterpreted):
noob? Feh, acronym grog.
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Very nice... wish I had a capture on one turn burned into my memory. A German town defense in CMBO. First turn my opponent launched a big salvo of arty at the town, and 2 of my 3 Panthers out of sight behind buildings received direct top deck hits. #@@$%%!!!
Yes, good times, good times.
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What a way to return from a 4 day weekend... CMFI Tin box waiting on the counter at home. That should go just fine with my new desk lamp, a commemorative Armistice Day 75mm shell turned into a lamp base. Just the thing for a wargamer geek.
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Didn't take Peng long at all to get to Italy... but there's sumfink missing... oh, I know
WANKERS!
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Well I for one *am* a sucker - for the Mediterranean theater
Agreed... now who's doing the map for Monte Cassino?
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I seriously doubt that the real estate available on a phone would make it usable in any sense.
If you're going to buy it just to support BFC, then buy the iPad version anyway... that's essentially what I did. Have an iPad 1, but a 3 should be in the near future, and I look at it as reinforcing a behavior I would like to see continue. By the time my 3 shows up, the kinks should be worked out!
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Gamey, then. They were promised shell holes but didn't get them so it would be inaccurate for me to use the prep arty to create some.
Are you trying to replay 'their/the historic' battle, or create an outcome of your own? Not gamey at all IMHO, just applying tactics to the situation...
Was it gamey to have a destroyer cruise offshore and pelt gun embrasures directly? Someone thought it was a good idea, and it contributed mightily to the effort IIRC.
Is firing Mortars or Artillery acceptable on 1st turn?
in Combat Mission Fortress Italy
Posted
Precisely. Unless there's a relatively static target, the big stuff is great for denying an area to the opponent. Slow, "meandering" fire from big guns can be useful as an interdiction to a good sized area, with the chance that you channel your opponent into lanes where your smaller stuff has LOS, and can go for the kill.