The Steppenwulf

Update - managed to download the package at work which has more downloading capacity. Still took 90 mins mind, but all's well that ends well.

Thanks for the feedback - at least I know I'm not ranting without good reason. I'm still out of pocket and unless BF read this with a solution, will continue to be. Regardless of our predicament, this idea (whilst great in some respects) is gonna' get a whole legion of complaints when it goes cross-CM2 and large numbers of the BF gaming community all face excessively long downloads.

Whatever - the New Installer System is a big let down. All I wanted was the engine upgrade v3, which cannot surely be more than 30 mb. So I have to download 10 Gb of material that I already possess just for 30 mb. This is less than ideal! If that weren't bad enough, 7 hours later I'm still sat here with only 45% of that downloaded. Now I might not have the fastest download speed but you know I regularly dowload Steam games of double the size of your installer in under 30 mins. And then at least it does complete the download and I receive what I paid for because after 7 hours your download has now crashed. Now there ain't so way I'm gonna sit through 14 hours of download with the same poss of another crash all for 30 mb of engine upgrade, so can we resolve this somehow, please some other way. I paid for for this engine upgrade last night and 24 hours later, I am still waiting to receive what I have paid for (which is not too much to expect). I know this problem and my complaint should be submitted via a ticket but I have tried this. My ticket application was rejected because it stated that I hadn't filed in a "description" where there doesn't even appear to be field for that on the ticket submit screen. Field's entered: Name - forename, Name -surname, Email address, Auto bot check. One pretty pissed off customer here. Please address this or else I will have my money back will be fine!

I think that this is the place intended to serve as the repository of all CM2 wisdom:- http://combatmission.wikia.com/wiki/Combat_Mission_Wiki

No not sniffy at all. Actually I use zz and zzz folders within data in order to test certain files against my mod files so I think it is a good point to indicate that there is indeed plenty of flexibility for adding modded files and removing them. Since I don't have version 3, I wondered if you might be able to illustrate how tagged maps/mods work? It has occurred to me that this is now an indispensable tool for customising scenarios eg, for RT to BN transfered special flavours, featured unit insignia, tank unit decals, the list goes on... I realise a script reads the tags but what about the mod folder?

Actually it was guess on the loading process - and that's what happens when you guess things . Thanks for clarifying the detail though Phil.

The individual files themselves must be named the same as the stock game files. Putting a z in front of them would not enable them to be loaded thus. The idea of putting them in a z folder is to ensure the game loads the material in that folder before it loads the stock material, which you will note are located in the various brz compressed folders in the data folder. The next files to be loaded (after the z folder contents) will be the brz stock folders, i.e., Normandy v301.brz, Normandy v300.brz then Normandy v212.brz and so on... I'm not entirely sure what you mean here, however you might be alluding to the fact the textures and sounds are named ...1, ....2, ....3, etc.. ??? The reason for this is that the game (following the loading of the first texture, which is not normally numbered) will load all subsequent numbered textures and sound files too (e.g., ...1, ...2, etc..) displaying each version randomly, with the effect of adding variation to the sounds and textures seen/heard in game. As far as I am aware there is no upper limit on the number of sequenced files that can be loaded. Hope that helps

Ensure that the mods you have selected are for the version you are playing. Some of EZ's earlier uniform mods became outdated by later versions by virtue of simple file name changes. Therefore a version 3 game will no longer read them. In case of doubt you just need to check them against the latest stock ones. I always find the best thing to do, to prevent any doubt with files is to explode all mod brz compressed material. I also have exploded all the stock brz and store the exploded stock material elsewhere so I can cross reference modded files with the stock one - if required. As an aside, you do need to pack files for them to be loaded so long as the files are named right and put in a z folder so they will overide all other stock files they will work.

Romany ingenuity that there. No doubt the police didn't quite know what road traffic contravention to penalise them for.

Pentium III with 32 mb onboard graphics and yet the maturity lagged more than the computer.

Neither is it a fair analogy because the car market is not, and is nothing like, the the 3d video game's market. On a similar note I cringe when I read discussions about game engine upgrades being compared to automobile feature upgrades. To me these sound like fan boi arguments and hold no truth. The truth applicable to all products is that they are only viable to continue producing (without a shift in design), as long as they continue to turn an acceptable profit for the company producing them. What the competition in the market is producing relative to the company's own products impacts on this. There's the rub; BF enjoy a certain degree of monopoly in this niche area of video gaming and that is why this product retails well. If BF faced stiffer competition they would be forced to consider their pricing more closely and similarly more likely to invest more and plan ahead sooner for their future products. Thus any company's products are only worth what we the buyers are willing to pay for them and that is a individual consumer driven assessment - it is not an objective discussion, only BF analysis of the overall sales can be the objective bit.

But was still dumped in any case

I must have missed that - thanks Pete :-)

I have this question also. And further to this, I wondered if there was a post providing a detailed explanation of the various triggers available with engine version 3.0. I even looked in the RT manual but there is no information therein about the editor at all, which I found surprising. I also ran a quick forum search but to no avail. If anyone could provide a link to a relevant post, or advise otherwise, I would be grateful.

If I were a betting man I'd be reckoning that it was all hands on deck now to try and get BS out for Christmas. If that is the reality then we can expect an announcement on that front at least within the next couple of weeks. Fingers crossed!

Come on guys, the richness of the middle east conflicts are just begging for Combat Mission; starting with the Arab-Israeli series, the devs could then move on to Iran-Iraq and then finish off with Desert Shield and Desert Storm. All of this would be fresh ground for this type of simulation wargame and I think that alone would make it popular. Furthermore, the entire SF fraternity would buy in without the need for the hard sell. Secondly the opportunties created by a parsity of terrain features would permit vast battlefields of stand-off tank engagements, a direction BF have already moved towards as they consider modern combat on the ukranian plains. 2 km + modern armour battles are ready to roll even now and would be a visual feast. Why not show the current engines ability to model this in the theatre best suited to its demonstration. It's such a win win I don't know why they haven't already announced it.

Slightly but ineffectively rude, and still, NO that is not the complaint. The complaint regards a matter of principle that a pricing stucture where a customer must pay for something that they already HAVE purchased is bad business. That is what the current BN pricing does. De facto. Secondly, if complaining about a bad business operation does not qualifiy as a legitimate gripe (seriously) then there is no point in having a thread open for comments and objectionable apologists wouldn't be forced to waste their time.

What mistaken assumption is that? :eek: The facts are clear and unequivocal as I have pointed them out - go do the sums and grasp the point made (though noone on the thread seems capable of doing so). Even Steve himself tacitly acknowledged (eventually) way back on the forum that there was an anomoly with regard to the CM:BN module/upgrade pricing. I will reiterate: Noone should be asked to pay again for something they have already purchased. That is bad business in any commercial operation. Yes it's a small gripe I know but it's a real gripe and deserves recognition on a thread opened specifically for this reason.

Just for clarification:- If a customer has previously purchased the 2.0 CM upgrade and now wishes to purchase CW and MG (= good business for BF) that customer is forced to repurchase the upgrade again (= bad business for the customer).

Noone should have to buy the 2.0 upgrade twice just because one would like to spend lots more cash purchasing CM:BN modules. Being forced to buy something you already have thus spending more money without receiving anything of value is technically a rip off and a perfectly legitimate gripe against any company, at any time, no matter how good their products are and no matter how highly valued they might be as a company. The irony is that CM could take another £70 off me simply by acknowledging this bad business and providing a solution, but they obviously see nothing wrong with the situation which obviously mean they don't view this as bad business. That is FUBAR!!

Great request. Much love for creating new skins:-

You legally own both computers, you legally own a genuine copy of the game. There is no legal restriction on the number of installations or instances of the game running at the same time. The restriction offered by your purchase (in the case of CM2) merely regard the number of activations afforded by the purchase. And even that is not set in stone since further activations can be granted on request.

Exactly!! Hide and crawl one action square at a time. The excitement this leads to on finally spotting something is normally enough to involuntary lose control of the bladder. Hence the term prior to this event commonly referred to as piss-bored.

Greenfish - I shall give it a go also. Thanks for the tip Ian.

When I view the alpha on the original example in Game Graphic Studio, I can see that there is variable transparency on the tree edging (for a shading effect) which gives it that less crisp look. I would say these pixels vary between 20% transparency to around 50% transparency but they are across that spectrum. My conclusion is that to get that scale of effect with your files (without hex-editing each pixel) you will need art software with 32 bit-depth capability. Perhaps someone else on the fourms with Photoshop can help you improve on these now for you?!!? I have converted the ones you sent me into (trans on or off only) though; find attached. foliage tiles trans added.zip