agusto

Yeah, ever since the release of CMBS i have to think of a huge Fula-Gap style scenario. Currently my plans for the CMBS scenario i intend to make look as follows: Name: Fuldarovsk - Forntier of Freedom (or something similar) Background: the official CMBS background story. Type: BLUE Human vs. RED AI. Timescale: within the first 24 hours of the Russian invasion of northern Ukraine. Length: 2 to 3 hours, i will think of that when i know what the map is going to look like. Map: 2,5km x 4km or even larger - depends on what my new PC can handle. I was looking for a possible site for the battle on Google Maps recently, but i havent found something fitting yet. I want the area to look a bit like central Germany, ideally like the area between Fulda and the inner German border. The area around Sumy and particularily east and north-east of Sumy (link to google earth below) looks promising though. https://www.google.at/maps/@50.9262735,34.9755828,22416m/data=!3m1!1e3 Units involved: RED: Up to 3 Russian mech and/or tank battalions, arriving in 3 waves, possibly some recon units and lots of artillery and air support. BLUE: About 1 mixed battalion with some AA assets and possible on-map mortars. I also intend to make use of the EW feature of CMBS to dissable the Ukrainians communication systems, so they wont get off-map support of any kind and they also wont be aware of whether or not their reinforcements arrive as planned or if they arrive at all. Ojectives: The RED objective will be an exit objective along the western side of the map. The Russian commanders intent is to punch through the Ukrainian lines as fast and as violent as possible in order to encricle and defeat them before NATO can come to help. The BLUE objctive will be to prevent the Russians from exiting the map at the western edge and to limit their advance (RED will have several phase lines as addtional objectives). Furthermore the BLUE side will have to limit friendly casualties and to maximize the enemys casualties. The whole scenario is planned to be a delaying action from BLUEs perspective to be a mechanized assault from REDs perspective. Difficulty: The scenario is hopefully going to be a massacre for both sides. It should be possible for an experienced BLUE player to win, but only just. EDIT: Thanks to all who took the time to test the scenario and provide feedback - will give you credit for that in the Briefing.

I think the cost-effectiveness of a light infantry unit on the modern battlefield depends largely on its organic anti-armor capabilities and what you want to do with your light infanty unit. Think of a Stryker Infantry Battalion: It lacks armor, it lacks heavy direct fire guns, but nonthess the Javlin ATGM system that is assigned to every single squad gives it an enormous punch even aginst a heavily armored foe. Without the Javelins though, the very same Stryker Infantry Battalion would be almost useless against almost everything except a bunch or badly equipped Iraqi insurgents. But is the Stryker Battalion more cost effective than a compareable unit equipped with M2 Bardleys? Yes and no, it depends on what you expect from your unit. On the defense, in a fight against an unarmored unit or against a unit solely equipped with IFVs and no MBTs, i think the Stryker Battalion would be more cost-effective. It would be almost as effective against the threats aformentioned but it would be cheaper to field than a fully mechanized unit. On the offense, in a fight against an enemy constisting of a mix of IFVs and MBTs or solely MBTs, i would opt for the unit equipped with the M2 Bradley because the Stryker Battalion would very likely not be able to accomplish such a task without taking significant losses since its anti-armor and long range HE capabilities are dependent on a single weapon system with a compareably small stock of ammo. Casualties also matter in terms of cost-effectiveness: each destroyed vehicle must be replaced, each dead or wounded soldier must be replaced, each wounded soldiers hospital bill and each disabled veterans rent must be paid.

It' s not that unusual that people on this forum post long and well thought out posts. JasonC occasionally writes half a book and posts it here: http://community.battlefront.com/topic/4353-firepower-thinking/ I recommend reading his posts on tactics thoroughly, he has some real talent an knowledge. I only could find the above thread via the forum search, but on my other PC i have a whole bunch of his posts added to my favorites in firefox.

Sure, go ahead!

Ahh yes, that' s also a possible interpretation. I am not particularily familiar with Wagner, i only know small parts of the Nibelungenlied, so i cant really judge how reasonable your interpretation is. When i tried to interpret the title, I was quite fixated on the ring. I was desperately trying to link your scenario with the ring that exists in the Nibelungenlied. The ring in the Nibelungenlied is owned by Fafnir, a dragon that was once a dwarf but turned into a dragon because he was so evil and greedy. Sigurd ambushes Fafnir by stabbing his sword Gram ('rage' or 'anger') in Fafnirs heart. He then drinks the dragons blood and eats his heart, gaining magic powers by doing so, and he also takes Fafnirs magic ring. Now my interpretation of the title was that Fafnir represents the Russians, Sigurd represents the Germans and the Ring represents the village they are fighting for in this scenario. Gram represents the 5th Panzer-Division, which is thrusted into the heart of the Russians like a deadly sword and kills them, which then allows the Germans to take the village.

I didnt even know this was possible.

@borg: WOW you were fast. I sent it to you when...? A couple of hours ago, maximum. Thanks for the feedback, i will look into Objective Charlie again. @SLIM: Thanks for your feedback too. Good luck with the CAAT team . Regarding the issues with the AI controlled T-72s, i am aware of that. They are not exactely doing what i told them to do, and i havent managed it yet to get them to do what i want. Actually they are supposed to go behind the wall that starts at the northern edge of the map and goes south, nicely covered and safe from Blues fire, but instead they go around it and run right into the ambush. They should slow down after a few hundered meters though and carefully (warning:SPOILERS) take positions around the objectives.

Is it supposed to be a reference to Wagners opera Der Ring des Nibelungen?

Aww man, the M1 is just extremely hard to kill.

As long as you arent builduing urban terrain, you can make large maps relatively fast in the Hamme Editor. It' s not as comfortable for designing landscapes as the Far Cry Editor Tank Hunter showed us or the CM Editor we all know, but it' s entirely possible to do without dieing of old age before the map is finished. That is all up to you in the Hammer Editor. Want a roof? Make one. The interior of a building? Make one. Destructible buildings? Well they are nasty to make because you have to define how they are destroyed and what happens if they are destroyed but it' s doable. Yeah the CM Editor isnt bad, but it' s quite simple and hence limited. What happens if i dont like the way the roof of Modular Building 2 looks like? Nothing, there is nothing i can do about it. The CM Editor is designed to be useable by each and everyone without having to learn anything, but this simplicity comes at the cost of versatility. I like the CM Editor, but that' s just the way it is. BTW the initial discussion wasnt about compareing the CM Editor with the Hammer Editor. That' s something you brought up. I just wanted to show the Hammer as technical demonstration.

This looks like it' s going to be an awesome scenario. I recommend changing the scenario title though, the current mix of (slightly incorrect) german and english sounds a bit weird, it doesnt do justice to your talent as scenario designer. The correct german title would be "Der Ring der 5. Panzer-Division".

How are things going? Were you able to finish the scenario? What are your thoughts, shall i release the current version? I already have an idea for a CMBS scenario, so i would like to finish this project within the next week or so. I dont want to put any of you under pressure though, i know you are doing this voluntarily.

Nice screenshots sburke. How long did it take you to capture them? The timespan between the detonation of the TOW missile and the impact of the HEAT warheads metal spike must be in the microsecond range .

I had written a great and lengthy post, explaining how the Hammer Editor the of Source SDK works, but then my PC crashed....Sorry sburke, you will have to be happy with just some videos: https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=hammer+editor So the above videos show you how the editor works. Here are some results: http://images.bit-tech.net/content_images/2005/09/lost_coast_benchmark/eyecandy1.jpg http://www.kitguru.net/wp-content/uploads/2013/03/half-life-2.jpg EDIT: Of course the HL2 engine cant practically produce level that look as good as the photo you posted, it' s an engine that' s more than a decade old. Still the concept of how the levels are designed in the SDK would, in theory, allow for almost unlimted detail. You arent limited by flavour objects, pre-set types of foliage, textures, terrain types, etc.

Really? I will have to give them a try then, i like it if it' s painfully difficult. I have spent way too much time on stomping Syrians into the ground in CMSF lately, i feel like i need an enemy that actually at least tries to resist.

I agree that CMBS lags behind in certain areas. Still though i claim that within its genre (battalion to platoon level 3D tactical wargames) it is the most deep and challenging game with the highest replayability. I tried other compareable games, like APOS, SABOW, etc and none of them i like as much CM. I have litterally spent a thousand hours or probably more playing CM and i am still not bored of it, so Battlefront must be doing something right, even if it' s not making shiny graphics or cinematic sounds or forrests beeing consumed by giant blazing fires.

The HL2 engine SDK kit comes with an editor that lets you create maps like this. The limit for the level of detail is only your hardware and the amount of time you want to invest in making the level. Naturally though if you want that level of detail, you must make a level polygon for polygon, which is a lot of work.

Ohh man that looks great. A must have IMO.

If KG Engles is a stock campaign, we should report the bug to one of the beta testers, because If it' s a stock campaign it' s Battlefronts job to fix it.

That explains the oberserved behaviour it seems.

Ok. Now we need to determine the impact velocity of the T-84s T-HEAT round. It is entirely possible that the T-HEAT round is slow enough to be intercepted by the APS while at the same time an APFSDS round fired from the same gun is too fast for the system. EDIT: Nercon, could you do some more testing? Could you test if the T-90AMs APS can intercept the T-84s APFSDS rounds? You need to use T-90s as targets because i doubt you will get the TacAI to us KE rounds on BMPs if HEAT ammo is available. Why is this test important? Because then we know for sure that this is a bug without having to find out what' s the probably impact velocity of the T-HEAT round when it hit' s a BMP-3. EDIT2: You could also test whether or not the observed behaviour is dependent on the range - at very long ranges it might be possible for a round to lose enough velocity to be slow enough for the APS to intercept it.

Thanks, sound interesting. I am definately gonna watch it soon.

Ahh, a Ukrainian tank, maybe it' s using its ATGM and THAT is what is intercepted by Arena? The Russian/Ukrainian tanks all (or at least some of them) have barrel launched ATGMs fro their main guns.

I had a similar thing happen to one of my M1s when i played Forging Steel. It got immobilized early in the game and the Russians used it as ammo dump for almost 2 hours, but the crew made it out alive.

What? This must be new in 1.03...do you have a savegame?