A Canadian Cat

Lots of good info and idea on the movement orders which just leaves this question: Yes, you are correct all three are possible. Typically if your guys are fired upon the enemy will become at least a question mark contact but it absolutely is possible for the enemy to remain totally un-spotted for a time. The further away the shooters are and the fewer of them there are the longer this can last. Snipers situated fair away, for example, can fire and remain a total mystery for the longest. Normally your men will only return fire once they have a solid contact but I have seen men return fire before that happens. I think that is just a small timing issue. And they will continue to fire briefly after contact has been lost.

The same thing can happen to you if you manually split the squads and are setting up bounding overwatch. Which is why I agree that it can be useful for short moves from cover. I also sometimes use it for building entry - usually when I do not believe there is any opposition. If the lead team finds there are occupants they have a built in fire support team that is right there.

Just a shout out to myself : the combat mission scenario list now includes the old Shock Force scenarios, maps and campaigns. Check it out here

Fun update. With the release of Shock Force 2 @Mad Mike updated his scanner tool to correctly handle the new files. I quietly updated the site to include new and updated Shock Force scenarios and campaigns. At the time I cooked up a scheme to manually update all the old files too. That proved a bit unworkable so I was wondering where that would go when I discovered that the new tool mostly doesn't die looking at old file so with a few tweaks I managed to get a full scan of all the old scenarios and all but two campaigns. There are some issues. You will see plenty of "unknown" strings in the tables - the new scanner does not get the correct information for all fields and likely will not so this we will have to live with. Also there are now even more scenarios that don't have a home (that I know of) on the web. I still owe @Bootie a list of such files so we can reconcile them. Check it out here (321 scenarios, 25 campaigns etc.): http://www.combatmission.lesliesoftware.com/ShockForce/Scenarios/index.html

Or a mismatched mod that tweaks the string file - for example Animated text.

Temporarily available here: https://www.dropbox.com/s/vmlb0ij1a5g3rcd/BilHTacticalProblems.zip?dl=0 I'll send the link to Bil directly too so he can get back up and running.

Good. I take it things are fine. Just for reference your scenario files are located under a folder in your documents. Look for a path with Battlefront and shock force in the name.

Cool. Not a bad strategy really. Thanks for the explanation.

You won - take the victory. Down play the casualties talk up your bravery and brilliant tactical decision to the upper brass. That's how you get ahead!

I grew up in Canada in the 80s so when I think of sunglasses at night I think of this:

You have your sun rise and set question answered so all that is left is to tell you the limitation that you will no doubt discover: The troops will not remove or set their NV goggles. Sadly when a scenario starts in day light and gets dark troops will not engage their NV goggles. Same as the other way around, if he game starts in darkness they will not disengage their googles when daylight makes its appearance.

The description called it a mortar but that didn't seem right. It looked like a 105. When I looked at the listed artillery pieces used by Ukraine it didn't list anything smaller than 122 except for mortars. I looked at mortars anyway and found there is a thing called a gun mortar. WTF - I had no idea. Check out the 2B9 Vasilek 82 mm gun mortar in the section called Gun mortars here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mortar_(weapon) I don't think that is the exact gun mortar but it sure has similarities like the auto loader and the recoil mechanism.

I totally get that. And I agree. I was just saying that given the environment - little to no feedback - we might just be out of luck. Yep. It's confusing. It's an issue. Basic coaching 100 is to make sure beginners get some feedback - focusing on some encouragement and gradually getting more specific and challenging as the beginner gets more proficient. And around here - crickets. If you end up a tester and design scenarios the feedback is great. I wish I had more time to do more outside of that. My first scenario ( http://www.thefewgoodmen.com/tsd3/cm-fortress-italy/cm-fortress-italy-add-ons/pathfinders/ ) didn't garner any feedback. My next two - created for the game - got lots. Thankfully I enjoyed creating the map and scenarios but honestly I prefer to play the game. I'm going to do more scenarios but I am certain it will remain a secondary thing for me. I'm glad there are others that spend more time designing though. I should buck up and do more to give feedback.

Closing the loop on this - I didn't realize I never included the link to the actual scenario on the scenario depot: http://www.thefewgoodmen.com/tsd3/cm-fortress-italy/cm-fortress-italy-add-ons/pathfinders/

First of all this is awesome! I'm out of upvotes today (I'm always running out it seems) but I'll be back... You get one for free. So, after using three you now have four. I'm just asking why not use group one? If you are planning something else the I apologize for jumping the gun but from what you have said so far you could leave the infantry as group one. Assign the strikers to group two and the mortar teams to group three. There is nothing to fear from group one.

Yeah it would be nice to allow for the ability to escape by going up and thus forcing the enemy to relocate or find a different solution. We just have to design around that in scenarios.

Yes. They are units - cost points - and therefore stripped out as well.

Yep. On the subject of quick battles and some of the cool things you can do I'll plug a really old post: Which included instructions on how to create really big QB battles. Those same instructions could be used for this exact scenario: http://www.lesliesoftware.com/forforumposts/2012/Force Selection Instructions.pdf

It has to do with the AI's inability to manoeuvre for the shot. Similarly, AI controlled vehicles cannot pull back to hit high targets that the gun cannot elevate to target, so they are allowed to shoot at targets to high for the gun. They also cannot make minor adjustments - backup some and move forward so they are 10m to the left - in order to get at enemy vehicles behind already wrecked vehicles. So, limitation for a reason.

That's likely normal. While in scenario author mode you are supposed to be able to see everything that does not quite extend to vehicle occupants. Except for the mortar teams but they are visible because the vehicles are open. If the teams appear when the dismount then all is right with the world. Now if you never see the infantry once they dismount then we have something to log.

Except that it is Ooops is my bias showing I believe correct - and it would incur costs on top of not actually giving real benefits - to BFC. I get that people think there are benefits to us consumers. Yep +1

Steve does - it's his soul. I am not surprised BFC have chosen to work this way. It's about focusing on priorities. If you are trying create a new module or game and you stop 5 times a year to build a patch that is very taxing on getting other things actually done. So, when you work on a patch you want there to be a number of things getting fixed not just one - even one as important as the one everyone seems to be waiting for.

Yeah the artillery thing is a big issue that lots of people care about but that is usually typically there are a bunch of similar priority issues to fix. BFC tries to tackle a handful at at time not on at a time. More on why I agree with that later...

That is excellent news. Yeah, my advice is to try *not* to mention specific dates. Just priority order. But if you do then the other advice you are getting here about posting a "we aren't going to make it" either before or shortly after said mentioned date passes. A few of those and you'll be looking longingly at the "don't give dates" advice

There is no de-licensing - just trying to save you time trying to find it. Typically removing licenses is not needed but support can help you do that in the slim chance it is needed. Your symptoms seem like those of missing resources which the all in one installers will fix up. ^^^^^ This is correct. Using the all in one installer will mostly likely fix your problem. If you have mods I would move them aside when you first try the game - just in case.