Jock Tamson
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Posts posted by Jock Tamson
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3 hours ago, Lethaface said:
Great news! One of my favorite campaigns from CMSF1.
Even better with the very sweary Scottish voice mod from CMSF1
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5 minutes ago, JohnO said:
Interesting. Has anyone try PvP, other words a Red Player against a Blue Player on the same scenario or is it only work if the players are on the same side?
see post above
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12 hours ago, Anson Pelmet said:
But not opposite sides?
You could play hotseat, but each player would be able to see the other one plotting their moves
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The more you try to simulate, the more you suck out the game. It is a tightrope for an entertainment product.
Advanced Squad Leader does not try to be a simulation, and is better for it. There is risk, randomness and decision making within a framework of phases all of which encourage a narrative to emerge. The inconsistencies that you get with CM are not so jarring when their equivalents occur in a boardgame - because "rules" (although in ASL there is likely to be a rule for it).
For example CM goes to great lengths (compared to other computer games) to simulate the effects of different levels of C2. And yet you, as the God-like player, can order every unit on the map with LoS to an action square to fire on it, even if only one unit has actually spotted a contact. The AI, of course, will not do this. This kind of situation is where, for me, CM can trip up over itself as it walks the line between allowing players freedom to do things, versus providing a framework of rules within which both player and AI operate. That kind of even ground within a set of rules is where, for me as a wargamer, a lot of the fun in a game is. I appreciate the situation is more nuanced in multiplayer.
The lockdown has encouraged me to look at formats I would have considered quite lo-fi a few years ago. There is so much software out there that tries to simulate stuff, it has become boring for me.
So I have been picking up the ASL Starter Kit after many many years away from boardgames, and goofing around with VASL. I have been playing Lock n Load Digital which has a nice impulse system. I've played a lot of Field of Glory 2. Sad to say I have found them more fun than CM. Maybe there will be something in the next iteration of CM that sucks me back in. -
47 minutes ago, bardosy said:
So it's basically a streaming service?
I share my CMSF2 screen with my friend and sometimes I can give him full controll of the game? And then he can give it back? So we can control the same side in a battle?
Yes
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As far as I am aware, the people you invite to the session don't need to own the game
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On 8/31/2020 at 4:50 PM, Erwin said:
Well, this was back in the 60's when (as a child of refugee/immigrants) I won a scholarship to a pretty fine school. Otherwise I'd be working in a uk factory. I return frequently to London, but find it quite depressing. Like most of Europe, it's all a bit 2nd world-like nowadays. I spent some time in Argentina, and it's hard to tell the difference between Buenos Aires and European cities. Anyhow - totally OT.
London is not particularly representative of the rest of the UK. Many of the smaller cities offer a quality of life that Londoners can only dream about. Example: Edinburgh
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It occurs to me that this feature could be used to play co-operatively. Or tutoring a new player. Anyone tried it?
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16 hours ago, MikeyD said:
Longtime Steam promoters on this site seemed to have imagined some sort of gaming nirvana if Steam got involved. But it turns out that CMSF2 being sold on Steam is the same old CMSF2 we all know and love. Meet the new boss same as the old boss (Which as lyric quote from The Who, not Nirvana)
I think the argument was - there is a market for niche wargames among the 95 million Steam users, the games will sell, and the revenue could be used to prevent the usual dichotomy of additional content versus additional features.
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2 hours ago, Erwin said:
Also re privacy issues, for those who still use our systems for confidential info, one doesn't want to have software like STEAM looking through a HD and sending info back to who knows where and for what purpose.
Steam doesn't "look through your HD", but yes if you have highly confidential data on a PC the only way to be sure of its safety is to not install anything on the PC and don't do any web browsing on it.
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The screenshots on the Steam page are really poor. Aliasing in all of them, when there is no need for it. You wouldn't put crumpled clothing in a store window.
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On 8/20/2020 at 8:57 PM, Combatintman said:
So Steam isn't the easy to use no drama experience that everybody who campaigned long and hard for it said it was after all
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This is called observational humour by the way, so no need to kick off.
To be fair none of these issues are to do with Steam, they are all about registering existing Battlefront keys on Slitherine,
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3 hours ago, Marwek77 aka Red Reporter said:
Why should I use Steam version, when I never deleted any original CM since I installed it on my PC or notebook?
One reason would be that adding it to your Steam library - you don't even need to install it - would allow you to a) review it on the Steam product store page b) post screenshots or videos to the Combat Mission Steam Community pages. If you were so inclined.
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Lastly, this is the Syrian Special Ops Uniform modded with the German forces trousers. You can see where I got the vest from for the mod above.
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In this example, I copied the texture for the shirt from the internet, copy and pasted the vest from the Syrian Special Ops uniform, recoloured the jeans. You can see that you don't have to be super careful, so long as you respect the boundaries of each section. I added a wave transformation to the sleeves.
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On 8/18/2020 at 2:47 PM, hypeman said:
Unless you count fooling around in MS Paint out of sheer, unrefined boredom in class, then unfortunately no.
Download Gimp, then use the BRZ exploder that comes with the games to explode the brz files and expose the individual bitmap images. Or download one of the US forces mods from https://www.thefewgoodmen.com/cm-mod-warehouse/ and play around with editing those. Aside from learning how to use Gimp, which largely takes a few hours of trial and error, the important bit is to make sure you save the bitmaps in the correct format - 24 Bit with no additional meta info (this will make more sense when you are using Gimp and try to export one of your edited images for the first time).
This is what a bitmap looks like. This particular one is for a new Combatant that I did for CMSF2. I have noted which bits are which. The front of the shirt was copied from an image on the internet.
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I have mostly played CMx2. I own them all, including Afghanistan. I played a little bit of CMx1 back in the day, but nowhere near the same extent. I have been gaming since the early 80s.
I am finding, as time goes on, that I am being drawn more and more to games in which the underlying board game (or miniatures) rules are still evident. For example, I play quite a bit of Field of Glory 2. For me, it is more "fun" than CMx2, whether single player or PBEM. I can't put my finger on it, but it is something to do with that old school combination of detailed rules, Action Points, terrain rules, consideration of your opponent's options, etc that draws me in, in a way which CMx2 just doesn't seem to manage. Lock 'n' Load Digital is another one.
There is obviously plenty of complexity available in CMx2 which has always been a big draw for me. However I think one of the problems is that I only play single player so my intricate bounding overwatch, house assaults etc are never matched by anything I see the AI do, so it can start to feel less like a wargame and more like a RTS title. Hopefully the Steam release will enable me to get some friends interested in multiplayer. -
Now up on the Mod Warehouse https://www.thefewgoodmen.com/cm-mod-warehouse/
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There are at least 3 threads containing comments about your issues so I presumed you'd be interested in a potential fix. It takes about 30 seconds and will either work, or not. System > Advanced System Settings > Performance Settings > Data Execution Prevention tab > Turn on DEP and exclude the CM executables.
If your IT guy hasn't read the Event Viewer Logs, and hasn't seen Windows report a DEP exception, then he will not have tried it. It is debatable whether it is an issue with CM or Windows. Your IT guy couldn't get it to work, he isn't going to blame his own troubleshooting skills is he?At the end of the day, PC gaming has never been like owning a Xbox. Let's be grateful we are not all here sharing tips on how to configure config.sys and free up upper memory like 1995.
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20 hours ago, Ultradave said:
I can't imagine actually trying to shoot it at something 20 m away.
You have to throw it. Oh hang on, that's the Javelin...
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I have a Windows 10 install. What I find is that the CM2 titles sometimes appear to hang at startup eg a black screen and not even getting to the tank firing in the dark splash screen.
The 100% successful fix for this, for me, is to switch desktop ie WIndows Key plus Tab then click back on the desktop with the hung startup. Sometimes need to do it a few times, but will always work.
I've been in IT for 20 odd years and have never had any issues getting CM to run on umpteen different machines. I would never use third party anti virus with Win 7 or 10. I always install games to somewhere like Hard Drive Letter:\games , not the Windows Program Files directories. I don't use Controlled Folder Access.
Any issue I have had with a CM install has been fixable within Windows sometimes by looking through the log entries in Event Viewer. For example that led to me having to enable Data Execution Protection For All Programs and Services and add the CM titles as exceptions, in Windows 7. In Windows 10 the titles happily run under the default setting Turn on DEP for Essential Windows etc. Have you tried changing the DEP settings @Erwin ? I seem to remember that when I had issues in Windows 7, the program would open briefly then disappear, similar to how you have described.
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3 hours ago, Erwin said:
Yes, thank you. Saves us a lot of work.
The work is largely original, combining different bits of Battlefront textures into new units . A number of the Unconventionals are completely new. Assets from zveroboy1 - sneakers and shemaghs - were used to increase the ragtagging. Blimey's helmets and mjkerner's Woodland plate vest have been used in the UK ragtagging.
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I'll be putting these on the Mod Warehouse, but in the meantime:
UK Forces : https://1drv.ms/u/s!AswpXnulSwEAjywkrhj1Wr4dNuBi?e=VcA7sa
Unconventional forces : https://1drv.ms/u/s!AswpXnulSwEAjy13tUrDFQImjCIa?e=qE6pEU
Download the desired mod, copy the zip into the ..\Data\Z directory in your CMSF2 installation, and unzip. -
The British Forces Campaign - Highland Games
in Combat Mission Shock Force 2
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I am not sure which mod it is in, it might be one of Mord's. Someone on here will probably know.