MOS:96B2P

Every few months I read a thread where C2 is discussed to include how best to use the XO team.  (Most of the time I use the XO as a medic).  It is often brought up if the XO team can take over from the CO.  So I thought it would be interesting to share the below screen shot where the CO was KIA and the XO takes command.
 

I definitely DON'T want them updating CMSF 2's setting; Keep it Syria, keep the time frame (but they could expand it beyond a couple months). At this point it has history, even if it's fictitious history, it's our history, that we all helped create. I just wanna see them update it to the new engine and such, maybe add some extra equipment/forces if we are lucky. The newest bells and whistles will really add a lot of depth to it. They could always create a spinoff module for some newer setting or what have you, but c'mon, leave CMSF in Syria, circa 2008.
 
 
Mord.

Absolutely. I see no reason to hunt around for another story etc etc or change the time frame. I'd really like just to see the same game updated and perhaps some additions to the force mix. The idea originally was simply to get CMSF up to the state it could follow the model of the other x2 games to keep the engine current. Changing the scope or background story/ timeline sounds like project creep. Keep it profitable and reduce the effort, keep it simple. I think most folks who want to see CMSF 2 are looking mostly to just see it updated, not changed. Hmm sounds like an idea for a poll.

However its done, or whereever the setting is, Id like to point at what MOS:96B2P said. The content in CMSF made it possible to create an enviroment and scenarios for ongoing, recent or comming conflicts in the ME. I really like to options that give and bringing that back in the latest game enging would be too cool.

+1    Me too.  CMSF force is a great game.  The setting of CMSF represents an area of the world where a lot of the current conflicts are.  This allows moders and scenario designers to expand CMSF beyond the original scope of the game and into almost any arid real world or fictional country.  An upgraded version with triggers, AA weapons etc that could be continued to be upgraded with the current CM engine version ............................ that would almost be too cool.       

Id pay full price to get CMSF back up to speed.

In the WW2 products, teams that start out heavily laden (like gun ammo bearers) can be unable to go faster than Move. But I haven't had a team that uses Acquire lose any movement modes, that I've noticed, even when the Acquire command wouldn't let me take any more bullets or bombs. Though I quite possibly haven't even tried to use Fast with such a team until they've expended some of that load.

I'm certain suppression is tracked per soldier. Every soldier cowers on his own timetable! But there is also the "threshold" over which an entire element is "Pinned", which triggers a different set of restrictions: they'll drop their movement orders, and possibly set some self-preservation waypoint once the Pin passes, if their morale state dictates. I suspect that it takes a few more bullets directed at the intact squad, even if they're all directed at one team of that squad, separated spatially by an ongoing Assault order, for example, to trigger that phase change than it does a split team, but it doesn't take as many bullets to Pin an intact squad as it does to Pin two split teams.

As a result, an intact squad prosecuting an Assault order loses the support of its firebase element more readily than a squad split into teams and moving in approximately the same manner via alternating Quick orders and Pauses at waypoints. For my money, this, plus the additional advantages of specialisation (so your firebase element is best equipped for being in support at longer range, and your leading element has all the handgrenades and SMGs) makes splitting splittable squads preferable in most cases in the WW2 titles. I can't speak for the modern warfare, as I have only very limited experience with the SF demo.

True, however I usually have them acquire only  a modest amount of extra ammo/equipment that I know that they are going to need, since I notice in BS at least they seem to tire a lot more quickly if they are lugging around a Javelin and reloads plus a couple extra AT4s and 5,000 rounds of 5.56mm. It's really a balancing act. If all they need to move is from the IFV parked behind the building where they are going to have to play Last Stand at the Alamo, then by all means have them bring everything in. But if they are going to have to be moving a lot over longer distances, they should travel light.
 
Michael

They also don't move nearly as fast.
 
Aquire the Javelin, lose the ability to use "Fast". Aquire the whole load, and lose the ability to use "Quick".

It can take some time to acquire ammo and equipment from a vehicle.  One of the things that I found can help is the use of a two man scout team or AT team.  I split a two man team (scout or AT) off from the squad.  Now this two man team can be used to acquire ammo for the rest of the squad while the squad can remain on line fighting.  Also the two man team is small enough it can get in most vehicles to acquire the needed ammo.  After acquiring the ammo the two man team then returns to the same action spot as the rest of the squad.  The game automatically recombines the teams into one squad and distributes the ammo among all the teams.  Next turn you can split the squad back into fire teams.  The teams / squad will distribute ammo and continue to shoot while recombining however there will be some danger while all the teams are bunched together.  
 
Below are some screenshots taken from CMBN reference acquiring supplies from an ammo dump. While the time period is different and does not involve a vehicle the concept is the same with a two man team getting supplies for the rest of the squad.  (Just ignore the C2 reference. That was for a different topic.)
 

 
 

 
This method still takes the same amount of time but it keeps most of the squad in the fight and the two man team will almost always be able to get in the vehicle to acquire the needed ammo.  Getting that two man team sent off in a timely manner to acquire the ammo is also important.  Hope this helped and gave you some ideas.
 

It can take some time to acquire ammo and equipment from a vehicle.  One of the things that I found can help is the use of a two man scout team or AT team.  I split a two man team (scout or AT) off from the squad.  Now this two man team can be used to acquire ammo for the rest of the squad while the squad can remain on line fighting.  Also the two man team is small enough it can get in most vehicles to acquire the needed ammo.  After acquiring the ammo the two man team then returns to the same action spot as the rest of the squad.  The game automatically recombines the teams into one squad and distributes the ammo among all the teams.  Next turn you can split the squad back into fire teams.  The teams / squad will distribute ammo and continue to shoot while recombining however there will be some danger while all the teams are bunched together.  
 
Below are some screenshots taken from CMBN reference acquiring supplies from an ammo dump. While the time period is different and does not involve a vehicle the concept is the same with a two man team getting supplies for the rest of the squad.  (Just ignore the C2 reference. That was for a different topic.)
 

 
 

 
This method still takes the same amount of time but it keeps most of the squad in the fight and the two man team will almost always be able to get in the vehicle to acquire the needed ammo.  Getting that two man team sent off in a timely manner to acquire the ammo is also important.  Hope this helped and gave you some ideas.
 

It's been discussed a few times, that I've seen: having Victory Conditions based on time, but in a soft/sliding scale way: you get a bonus for getting to the VL early, or a penalty for not getting there in time, type of idea. To date, it has, in the discussions I've seen, been considered a desirable tool to have in the scenario design kit, but not yet available.

I thought of a workaround today, which might come in handy for scenario designers interested in having this sort of victory condition.

It mostly only works for the AI; a human player could easily subvert it.

The initial idea was a "patrol vs patrol" scenario, where you were the hunter, and the AI was patrolling an area. Your level of victory would be determined by how many "checkpoints" the AI's patrol(s) managed to reach; your eventual discovery, and elimination, of the enemy was pretty much a foregone conclusion. So you have to efficiently search for the enemy element(s) in various sections of the map and neutralise them quickly for maximum victory level. You'd effectively have a fixed score ("Destroy all enemies") that would be mostly a "gimme", but your victory level would be determined by how many Touch victory locations the patrols you were hunting had managed to reach. The AI moves at a consistent rate, with consistent timing, so the designer would be able to effectively say "if it takes 30 minutes it's a draw; longer and it's a loss, less and it becomes a win" or whatever seems to make sense, by assigning values to the VLs to change the ratio of victory points between player and AI.

That made me think: you could have an "artificial" AI victory point accumulator, somewhere obscure and out of sight at the back, possibly surrounded by impassable terrain, with a series of small, adjacent "Touch" VLs, and a single unit assigned to its own AI group with orders to move from one to the next at specified time periods by the AI plan. So you could give the AI a bonus to its victory points for the player taking "too long". Obviously there are ways to subvert this, as the player, if you know the timer mechanism is invoked, but some of those can be mitigated. Don't give 'em any TRPs so they can't indirect fire onto this out-of-the-way, out-of-LOS VP track; put concrete bunkers there for the "timekeeper" unit to shelter in if there's any chance of nearby collateral damage (air strikes or what-not). The impassable terrain would mean that routing troops wouldn't accidentally trigger the "Touch" VLs.

You could do the same with units that are associated with "Exit" VCs; have them lined up near an exit-permeable map-edge. You'd need one AI group per "timetick" for that way of doing it though.

Has this been done before? Is it any use to anyone?

It's inherently a "convenience" command, since its function isn't as refined as microing the split squad, so it's certainly a lot easier to use in RealTime than split squads. It also works on "squads" that aren't splittable, like Italian formations, giving them additional, plausible tactical options without the carte blanche freedom to separate that more finely-grained formations get.

Oh I hate that fire just as you halt thing. My first friendly fire casualties were because of that - what a WTF moment. I agree with @womble move fast to get to the good place and then set your pause and withdrawal orders.

I do use hunt sometimes to move tanks up: if I am moving them to a place I want them to stay like the edge of a forest or a good hull down position covering some spot. In those cases I will use hunt so that if they do see something on their way they will stop - after all they can see the enemy and that was the idea.

No, I don't often use Slow for straight moves; it's for helping the poor ickle AI's brain cope with twisty-turny roads and streets. I'd use Fast out to the firing spot, to get there ASAP, and minimise the time I spend out of defilade. If I've judged it wrong, and don't go far enough, then that's fine, cos I've not exposed my armour to the enemy. Even at Slow, wasting your first shot by shooting on the move isn't, I feel, a good plan, even if you get it away half a second earlier; you're still going to crawl "all the way" to the waypoint that you estimated was "just far enough", and any unanticipated threats have longer to engage you, even if your moving shot was a fortunate one. Also, I don't use popup attacks often when I'm not sure of the threat environment. Certainly, there are exceptions, but those tend to be "Oh well, time to spend a tank to get some info," moments, and pretty rare, and while it's nice for the tank to survive, it might not even be a pop-up shot.
Most of the time, if you've got a good idea where the target is, you can have a pretty good idea of where you've got to get to in order to shoot at it, and Fast gets you from "unseen" to that place quicker than Slow, and gives your trigger-happy gunners less chance of taking a dippy first shot... Unless they fire just as you halt, and the tank is "rocking" forward on its gas-lift, and the round hits the dirt 16m ahead of your vehicle... :-/

What Holman said.  But I like the way you think.  Maybe Combat Mission Fulda Gap 1985!  or even CMFG set in 1986.  I'm not picky.   

Plus A10s!

...cont.



Who were you up against? If they had IR and you were trying to sneak through foliage, you were probably standing out like a sore thumb.
I believe you are mistaken, and should have been using Slow to get from "can't see the target" to "can just see the target" in concealing terrain. At the very least, Slow moving means your troops are making the best use of any undulations in the terrain and any higher vegetation. However careful you are while "Hunt"ing, you're still upright, and presenting a larger area to the observing eye.
And now you've had bad experiences using Hunt. It probably depends on exactly what you're trying to do and the precise circumstances in which you're trying to do it which is the most appropriate movement mode. There is no "one size fits all".
If they'd been Slow moving, IME they would have fired back once taking fire, if they could spot their tormentors.
Sometimes, the battlefield sucks.
It'd help if you said exactly what you wanted your troops to do of their own initiative? Do you want them to open fire at the apparent source of incoming fire? Assuming they could even get a Target line to it. Or do you want them to displace so they can get a target line to where they think the rounds are coming from, and then bring that location under fire? Getting the TacAI to even use area fire in a sane and rational manner that doesn't leave us tearing our hair out at the foolish overexposure and waste of ammo by our own troops, and smirking at the very same from the opposition AI (which would have to be taught the proper use of Target Arcs to mitigate its hair trigger, and that's a learning point that appears to be beyond some human players) is going to be close to impossible. Adding judicious offensive repositioning would just have people ragequitting at their overaggressive pTruppen's reckless behaviour. At least if the pTruppen are natively cautious, we can learn to work within those constraints, and the AI doesn't just throw its troops away trying to sneak into places it really shouldn't.
Yes, it's really complicated. Really, really complicated. Given that the game is currently CPU-bound and single-core, I don't think there are the processor cycles available to deal with that sort of calculation realtime, even if the algorithms could be implemented in a reasonable manner. Maybe after an architecture change. "CMx3" or "CMx4", perhaps. Don't expect it in CMx2 v4, though. It's worth noting that BFC have said that AI improvements will tend to be secondary to other engine improvements and new content, because they provide inadequate return in terms of dollars players are prepared to pay per programmer-hour spent wrangling with AI.

The game mechanics can be frustrating when things don’t turn out right.  The AI is far from perfect and can always use some improvement.  One of the biggest challenges is to take our tactical ideas and translate them into commands via the user interface that the AI will understand and follow.  I have found the following tactics will mostly give the desired result in building assaults.
 
First I try not to intentionally enter an OpFor occupied building.  I attempt to drive the occupants out with firepower and would rather, when possible, level the building instead of forcing entry.  But sometimes you have to make a dynamic entry of an occupied building.
 
It is best to have multiple squads split into fire teams.  Under the admin command there is the assault team split.  Make this split.  Then look at this team’s ammo panel in the UI.  You will see that they have most of the squad’s grenades.  Have the remainder of the squad (B Team) area fire into the building as a suppression team.  There should be two or three additional suppression teams also area firing into the building.  All the better if one or more of these teams is a machine gun team.  Watch for the OpFor teams to cower and their return fire dwindle.  This may take three or four minutes.  If they don’t cower (become suppressed) the fire is not enough. 
 
When you get ready to go in if any of your suppression teams have bazookas, rifle grenades, etc. switch those teams to target light so as not to injure your assault team.  Then quick the assault team up to an action spot outside the building.  Pause them in this action spot for about 10 seconds.  They will now make use of those grenades.  When the 10 seconds is up quick them inside the building to close and hose.  Your suppression teams will still be area firing on target light into the building.  They will not injure your troops on target light but it is possible that they might suppress your own troops.  However, at this point, the fight is going to be over with very quickly for better or worse.  I think the advantage is to keep the target light stuff coming.                    
 
Now comes an even more dangerous time for your assault troops.  If there are OpFor troops behind the building or on the other side of a common wall they will now target your assault troops.  And your troops that were providing the suppressive fire will probably not be able to support them in a timely manner.  Another reason I try not to go into occupied buildings.    
 
Also after I own the building I try to have no more than one team per floor.  
 
For movement in woods I often use Hunt with a circular target arc of about 30 meters.  Then they will usually only respond to threats inside the arc and keep advancing.    
 
Hope this gave you some ideas.         

A 1980s Fulda Gap type base game could lead to a lot of interesting spin off scenarios with the help of the moding community and scenario designers.  A scenario from almost any conflict in the 1980s could be created with NATO and Warsaw Pact equipment.  Grenada, Panama and the Falklands just to name a few. 

I would like to point out I would definitely pay for a CM:fulda gap style game. Especially if the do a BAOR (British Army of the Rhine) module! Mmmmm Chieftain Mk 10s!

I'm afraid of running out of shells using any rate of fire greater than light or harass.  I normally use two tubes of arty (105mm preferred) with a light rate of fire, point target, maximum duration.  When the rounds start to impact the first target I then adjust to the next target.  A few more shells will fall on the original target and then the fire will start to shift.  I don't remember the exact amount of time but I think many four tube arty batteries firing only two tubes on light will provide over 30 minutes of indirect support when used with these parameters.  Usually enough time and HE to greatly assist with the breakthrough.
 
Edit: Womble beat me to most of it.

Spartans Always came back home either with their shield or on top of their shields...