A Canadian Cat

Certainly one very important factor - and I am glad this is getting attention. The other part is: These two clearly interact. How hard it is to spot the turret of a tank vs spotting an entirely visible tank will interact with how many people are trying to find each. I am glad all this is on the table but please consider that if there is indeed a problem with the relative weighting of the crew's eyeballs for the purposes of spotting don't forget that the difficulty to spot what they are looking for should also not be equal. I should be significantly more difficult to spot a hull down tank than it is to spot an exposed tank even with equal eye balls. My gut says that the difficulty in spotting a portion of a tank vs the whole thing should totally dwarf the difference between 2, 3 or 5 sets of eyes looking. By that I mean my gut would be that even 5 sets of eyes looking for the hull down tank would be slower than 2 sets of eyes looking for a whole tank. Sounds like Ken is on the case and looking at the issue. Thank you.

Those ? contacts are an approximation and often a ways off target. I think what @Vanir Ausf B is talking about is putting the camera low and moving around the area you suspect the fire is coming from and listening to the gun go off repeatedly while you hone in on where it is located.

Oh that is for sure. At first I thought I was going to do OK since my guys got one of the first through the hole but that did not last long. It was the beginning of the end for my poor hard done by defenders

You can even do 2nd, 3rd etc floor entries between buildings that are next to each other. One of my opponents used it on me once:

Naw - I'm with Bill. Room for improvement - sure, use of vehicles broken - no. Play the game and have a good time. Report back here if you see something odd (or awsome) and then go back and play the game some more.

+1 to what @para said. While theoretically making my own mixes would be a good idea, the reality is I just want to play so I'll dl everything and install one ready to go set and say to my self "I'll make my own mix later" but I never will I like the set of helmets you have right now so looking forward to another set.

Full disclosure I have been asked by the fine people over at the Blitz to help out in spreading the word about happenings over there. The CMx2 Blitz ladder is running a 'Scenario of the Month' project and you all are invited to participate. The goal is to playtest scenarios in order to determine how well balanced they are for H2H play. Sign up for the January scenarios of the month has started over at the blitz: CMBN: CW Monty's Butchers CMFI: GL In for a Pound Forum post for signing up If you are not already a member you will need to sign up to post. There are more details at that link but you will be paired with an opponent randomly to play out the scenario. The blitz holds a database of all scenarios that have been played by members of the ladder. For CMFI you can see it here: http://www.theblitz.org/scenarios/Combat-Mission-x2/cmfi/action=list&game=165 From it you can see how many games have been played and what the outcomes were. For example you can see that Beyond the Belice has been played 9 times and has a pretty even split. The goal of the scenario of the month is to get players playing some new scenarios and increase the amount of information recorded in the scenario database.

January scenarios of the month has started over at the blitz: CMBN: CW Monty's Butchers CMFI: GL In for a Pound Forum post for signing up

OT Regarding pauses at way points: Those pauses are for everyone in the unit to reach their destination. After which they will continue on to the next way point. Smaller teams means less guys moving which means less time for everyone to find a place at the way point. I have noticed that split teams suffer less pausing. Now if you split a squad and then move them to the same way points I am not sure if you will still see any benefit because they still have to avoid all the same bodies along the way. Worth testing perhaps.

I searched again and could not find the thread. Bummer, I did not mean to create a conspiracy theory. I fully understand that this is just about time and priorities. I just wish support for external tooling would make it up the list enough to get some actual attention - starting with command line launching.

Indeed. My suggestion for terrain FOW would be to have a top map like that under the game field and the terrain you know about covers it up. So as you are looking at the battle field you can use the map for what maps are good for - picking a general route and making sure you take the high ground etc. But you would still need to do actual recon to conduct a proper assault.

And it is a tribute to how good the game is that doing this is better than just rushing around. Interesting, that would be do able in game as well. I have done it from time to time. Must make it more of a staple tactic. Now that would be cool.

Yikes 66 is not old - says the 46 year old looking forward :-) To true. If they did the things needed to create a real simulator small battles that we fight comfortably in 30 turns would take 120 or more turns and the majority of the time scenarios would stop early with an automatic withdrawal at the first lopsided exchange of casualties.

Pretty much crickets. If I recall correctly my more extensive suggestion to support community based tools requesting force selection for QBs, full causality reporting for game end, generating maps etc was rejected as too much work that would take away from the development of game features. Which is why I suggested this to at least get things started (pun intended).

Excellent, I am going to give it a whirl. Sadly I have been less than judicious about saving screen shots of scenario ends. On the plus side I do have a archive of nearly ever PBEM turn I have ever played so I can reload final turns... This is going to take a while.

I have not done it but I would start by de-compiling the campaign with @MadMike's campaign and scenario information tool. I do not know if that actually nets you a core unit file so the first thing you might need to do is find the scenario with the most complete set of [core] units, make a copy of it to use as a new core unit file. Then you would have to make sure you included another units that were [core] but cut out of the scenario you used to recreate the core unit scenario. After that you would then make the changes you wanted and import into each and every scenario as needed. Also, you might need to delete the older core units - I have no idea if importing preforms a replacement or an addition. You would have to pay attention to AI plans, Reinforcement settings and initial deployment as well. For each scenario. Once each scenario was tweaked to still work then you would recompile the campaign again using your newly changed scenario files. That is how I would start. Or more accurately that is what I would thing about and then decide - nah I'm not doing that If you are undaunted let us know how it goes.

Oh man those last pictures looked really good - going to find the map now...

Good glad to hear I am in the right ball park on this.

OK good. I am sure you are not loosing sight of your main concern. I was just concerned that the test tweaking requested was not really going in the right direction. Here is the thing. You have already shown that the TC in the hull down tank is at a spotting disadvantage against the whole crew of a tank in the open. That points to issues. I see what you are saying: that tweaking the test so that TC in a hull down tank and TC in an out in the open tank could shed more light on things. After all we could have a problem with any single spotter having an easier time spotting just a turret over a whole tank - which would not be good. And / or we could have other crew members with too much visibility compared to the TC in general - which would also not be good. Carry on:D

Very well said. I knew things were moving too fast calling out all those steps makes it clear. The thing is, at Brigade level that 2 hours (or more) before H hour would be before the scenario. Of course all your earlier comments about the company and platoon level leaders actually executing the plan and responding to the battle field events still hold. That and our perfect knowledge of the enemy lintel is certainly a big speed up. Oh having terrain FOW would be really cool. It could even be scenario dependent. Have the bulk of the terrain rendered as a topo map - if there were good maps available or just black if there were not. That would slow us down.

Spot on. That was pretty much what I was going to write after reading @Dadekster's very well though out post. I am in agreement with you.

This looks very interesting. I remember your v1 attempt (I think it was you) and I am looking forward to trying this one out. Now wouldn't it be nice if games automatically generated a report file with the numbers from the end screen (and more details too about each unit). That would be be a nice feature for BFC to add.

There have been a couple of threads asking for that - see my sig line for one.

This is a slight concern for me. I know where you are going - trying to determine if there is something off with a particular tank's spotting ability. So, regardless this is worth while testing. Having said that my real concern is that even a single set of eye balls - the tank commander's - sitting in a hull down tank is not spotting a tank in the open before being spotted. I understand the more eyeballs argument and it has some merit but not all eyeballs are equal especially in a tank. My gut says that one guy with the best view showing a vastly reduced profile should "win" the spotting race more often that not even against the whole crew of a tank in the open. After all the one guy has a whole tank to look at while the crew has a sliver of a profile to look at. That plus some of those crew members would have a poor chance of noticing a hull down turret. Do others feel I am wrong in that view? I am more than happy to be convinced I am totally wrong.

And we appreciate it by the way - even if we do not always sound like we do Glad to hear you - and others are on the case.