Collingwood

My bad, not BSD Mach, just Mach. I conflated BSD into it through a bad memory, due to it at one time supposedly destined to replace the BSD kernel. edit - so, I take it then the kernel has been re-opened ? In 2006 Apple closed the kernel: http://www.macworld.co.uk/mac/news/?newsid=14663

Yerrrrrs. I stopped using Safari years ago. As for OSX and memory management, Apple started off well using the BSD Mach kernel, and it was actually open sourced (Darwin). But then - I forget which iteration of OSX 10.n, they closed it up. I wonder how far behind the ball they really are now with their kernel in relation to other UN*X flavours.

Thanks heaps for those heads-ups Ranger. They look good, Red Orchestra is interesting, I'd seen it mentioned but I never checked it out until now. At the moment I use my son's PS3 for BF3 (now I am showing my age) so perhaps a better PC set-up is in order, I doubt I could run RO or Arma on my current one. Have you played RO? Does it have many maps to choose from ?

Yes! I was in a wargames club in my home town that rented a floor of an office building in the city. We had multiple large tables set up: Ancients were big and so were Napoleonics. I think I ruined my eyesight painting all those little men. Mostly we did 15mm Napoleonics, although I started with 25mm.

I know that many of us here don't like first person shooters (FPS), but after seeing some youtubes of Battlefield 3 I thought it looked really well done, visuals wise. So I got it for fun, with no serious plans to get into shooters. Yes, it's cinematic - the lighting effects, destructible terrain etc are awesome. CM:SF types would love some of the maps. It is definitely the best looking game I have seen. It should be, for the budget those guys work with. It struck me that it would make a good combat simulator game if played right. Visuals aren't everything, there are definitely abstractions in the game and how you handle your weapons, but every game has compromises. A first (that I know of) for a shooter is that you suffer suppression. Lots of near misses and bullets splatting into the wall next to you makes your vision blurry and your reactions slow. No more "I am impervious to incoming fire". Lights will dazzle and blind you. Smoke and dust blind you. So I got on-line to see how people handle the game. I was really disappointed. Not with the game, but the way it is played. For a game that organises players into squads, and allows VOIP communication, there was little to no squad coordination. Everyone runs around like 4 year olds at a party that have had too much sugar, only murdering each other. I was hoping to find squads working together: overwatch, bounding movement, find fix and fire. Maybe there are lots of people out there playing the game using real world tactics, I haven't looked long enough. Perhaps people aren't using careful tactics since as in most shooters if you die, you "re-spawn" again somewhere else after only a few seconds. If you had to wait 5 minutes to rejoin the action then maybe people would be more circumspect. I admit my online performances are completely humiliating - my reactions are simply too old for these guys: I have done very well on firing ranges, but my thumbs can't twiddle a joystick quickly enough to beat these young guns - fair enough. If only I could find a server for old farts It strikes me that if enough people got together using the proper tactics, despite the fact it is a FPS, there is scope there to reasonably simulate infantry squad combat, and dominate anyone else not being tactically sound. I am interested to hear if anyone here has played it or uses good squad coordination, and their thoughts on using the game as a tactical squad simulator, a bit like CMSF but "you are the grunt".

Painful to watch. I gave a little cheer when he finally managed to squeeze off a few shots. Someone needs to tell some of these guys that unless there is a skyscaper the other side of the wall, holding your weapon up over your head and firing over the wall 45 degrees into the sky is just converting good ammunition into noise for no reason.

Only ever WEGO, for the excellent reasons already mentioned. I can save each replay and view it later for screen capture The uncertainty and excitement of 'not quite in control' for periods of the action. It seems more realistic to me as a commander that I can say "take your squad around the left of that hill" - and then see it go pear shaped, instead of "take your squad left... oops, better dodge right.... hang on, come back and go over there". WEGO means I have to think very cafefully about the consequences of my orders. Your orders better be right, or your men are in a world of pain. A bit like the real thing

Old school diplomacy - face to face, going off into other rooms to negotiate/threaten... hand written and signed agreements. It was great fun! Panzerblitz was the first game I bought. We ended up calling it Panzerbush because people gamed the rules by hopping across the map via bush/tree hexes. You can't hit them in the open because they always finish their turn in a bush. We were all so excited when the first Squad Leader came out. I think of CMx2 games as a bit like advanced, graphic versions of the Squad Leader series.

As well as Poesel's suggestion about Quicktime, you can use Screenflow. It's expensive but I think worth it. You can collect multiple captures, edit them, include transitions and text etc, decide whether to capture the computer audio or a mic, and so on. When capturing you can choose to not include the cursor. After the capture you can easily crop it. Finally it lets you export in a multitude of ways. I like to make little movies of CM battles without including the user interface, Screenflow does that very well. Mind you, prepare to give up multiple GBs of drive space if you want to capture a whole battle

H2HH - uses dropbox to exchange turns. see: http://www.battlefront.com/community/showthread.php?t=107790 cheers

48, or as I prefer to think of it: my 2nd 24th year.

It is worth the wait though. I wasn't sure I would be able to get into CMSF, but I'm having a ball with it. Enjoy!

You can in CMSF. I was playing a scenario last night and had to clear a trench. There were 2 infantrymen in the trench that just wouldn't submit to the M1A1's MG, so after a couple minutes I lost patience and drove over them. It was a bit gruesome - the dying sound they made was different to when being shot, more of a "oooooooh-urrrrgh". They were definitely dead after going under.

It's up! Just downloaded, cheers

I just finished replaying, and got a minor victory. I ended with (edit) 11 KIA and 13 wounded - which is a pretty terrible result I admit. It surprised me because I did medic every casualty. Although I achieved all the objectives, the high casualty rate dragged my score down (or increased the enemy's). This time I restricted arty to trenches only, and didn't use any air strikes. Everything was left intact except for one wall of a DP. I left every vehicle behind and did everything by foot. It was a close run thing though, several sections were entirely out of ammo by the time they were within the fort. It made for a pretty intense fight though. Thanks again Combatintman !

A quick note to thank you for this scenario. I did manage to take all the objectives, however I too suffered a minor defeat, it seems due to the same reasons as others have mentioned - I took a few casualties since those RPGs kept popping up everywhere, I also destroyed civilian buildings due to my heavy-handed arty and air response to RPGs etc. I also lost points for 'infrastructure' - would that be because I pretty much destroyed the jugroom fort ? I think this one has high replay value. I only got the game a few days ago and have played half a dozen or so battles, and this was my first defeat. It might sound strange, but that pleased me greatly. Perhaps a lot of the missions I've played have been easy, but I was worried that I wouldn't find a challenge. cheers

I've just jumped on the CMSF wagon with the Mac release. A big thank you to BFC for that, and also to everyone here who has contributed to it over the years - I'm getting the immediate benefit of a stable platform which is the result of a lot of effort. One question - I've done a search but couldn't find it. Has anyone put together a table of relative point values of units ? e.g. in CMBN or CMFI we can purchase units and see the overall point value to get a roughly equal mix. Obviously with the uncon forces vs conventional there would be a huge point disparity, and perhaps it's better to try to balance a scenario by making the victory conditions for blue a deal tougher. Yet the euroscape mod might make a table of values more important for balance. I would be interested to know any thoughts about unit point values in CMSF ? cheers

And for added anxiety inducing claustrophobia, don't roam with the camera beyond your forces.

Gee, 4 new members magically appear in one thread, and they've all brought their own tea cups so they can have a storm. Merry Christmas !

Yes, I bought CMSF (Mac) and it registers with the new license system. Worked flawlessly

Oh thank you thank you thank you Phil! Bought, downloaded, playing. This really has made my Christmas morning complete!

That was my first thought too, but Big Al hangs out mostly on the Strategic Command forum.

I was temped to type this in shouty caps: sense of perspective

It's a +1 pile-on. Very happy with the upgrade. I can't go to the movies that cheap. Played Barkmann's Corner last night and had a ball! Not sure if it's just rose coloured glasses but the vehicle models looked better than before.